OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


HOW 


WESTERN  FARMERS 


ARE 


Benefited  by  Protection. 


DAVID     H. \MASON 


TARIFF   EDITOR   OF  THE   CHICAGO   INTER-OCEAN. 


COMPILED    FROM    EDITORIAL    ARTICLES   WHICH    HAVE  APPEARED    IN    THE 
INTER-OCEAN   DURING    1874   AND    1875. 


He  that  is  first  in  his  own  cause  seemeth  just;  but  his  neighbor  cometh  and  searchethhim. 
-Proverbs,  xviii.  17. 

Prove  all  things ;  hold  fast  that  which  is  good. — First  Thessalonians,  v.  21. 


PUBLISHED   BY   THE   AUTHOR. 


CHICAGO : 

No.  460  WEST  RANDOLPH  STREET. 
1875- 


TO 

HENRY   C.  CAREY, 

THE  GREATEST  OF  ALL  THE  ADVOCATES  OF 


THIS    LITTLE   WORK   IS   INSCRIBED 

BY  ITS  AUTHOR, 

AS   A   TOKEN   OF   PROFOUND   RESPECT  AND   AFFEC 
TIONATE    REGARD. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER.  PAGE. 

I. — OUR  MARKETS,  THE  HOME  AND  THE  FOREIGN         ...      7 

II. — OUR  EXPORTS  OF  WHEAT 12 

III.— EXPORTS  OF  WHEAT  FLOUR       .        .        .        .        .        .        .17 

IV. — EXPORTS  OF  INDIAN  CORN         .......     21 

V. — EXPORTS  OF  INDIAN  MEAL        .        .        .        .        .        .        .     25 

VI. — OUR  EXPORTS  OF  POTATOES 28 

VII. — THE  FARMERS'  WOOL  AND  IRON  QUESTIONS     .        .        .        .31 

VIII. — THE  FARMERS'  SALT  QUESTION 36 

IX. — THE  FARMERS'  LUMBER  QUESTION 41 

X. — TARIFF  DUTIES  AND  CONSUMERS        ....*.    45 

XL — PRODUCTION  AND  FREE  TRADE         ......     50 

XII. — BENEFITS  OF  TARIFF  PROTECTION    ......     55 

XIII. — EFFECTS  OF  PROTECTIVE  DUTIES 59 

XIV. — PROTECTIVE  TARIFFS  AND  PRICES 63 

XV. — PROTECTIVE  DUTIES  AND  PRICES 68 

XVI. — WHO  PAYS  THE  DUTY  ?  THE  PROPOSED  CANADIAN  RECIPROCITY 

TREATY  CONSIDERED      .        .        .        .         .        .        .        .72 

XVII. — OUR  MANUFACTURES  GOING  ABROAD        .  ...     77 

XVIII. — FARMERS  TAXED  TO  DEATH 79 

XIX. — RAILROAD  IRON— THE  TARIFF — TRANSPORTATION    .        .        .83 

XX. — SELL  DEAR  ;  BUY  CHEAP 89 

XXL — AMERICAN  POTTERY 94 

XXII. — A  PROTECTIVE  TARIFF  AND  EXPORTS  .    99 

XXIII. — WHY  OUR  MANUFACTURERS  WANT  PROTECTION        .        .        .105 
XXIV.— FARMERS'  SUPPLIES  CHEAPENED  BY  PROTECTION  .  no 


M553987 


PREFACE. 


My  object  in  writing  the  articles  contained  in  these  pages  has  been  to  convince 
the  public  generally,  and  farmers  particularly,  that  the  policy  of  Protection  to 
home  industry  is  promotive  of  their  interests  and  conducive  to  their  welfare. 
Our  present  tariff  system  has  been  so  wickedly  misrepresented,  and  even  willfully 
lied  about,  that  it  is  high  time  the  other  side  should  be  heard  on  its  merits,  and 
that  the  people  should  investigate  for  themselves. 

The  principal  propositions  which  I  think  have  been  conclusively  established 
in  the  following  pages  are  these:  That  farmers  have  obtained  much  better  prices 
for  their  produce,  and  have  been  able  to  export  it  in  larger  quantities,  under  Protec 
tion  than  under  partial  Free  Trade.  That  the  Protective  policy  operates  to  bring 
the  manufacturer  to  the  side  of  the  farmer,  thus  dispensing  with  useless  transporta 
tion  between  the  two,  and  with  superfluous  middlemen.  That  the  same  policy 
constantly  tends,  with  accelerating  force,  to  enhance  the  value  of  land,  of  labor, 
and  of  raw  materials,  including  the  produce  of  the  soil,  while  diminishing  the 
value  of  manufactured  articles — the  more,  too,  as  these  take  on  higher  forms  of 
reproduction.  That  the  foreign  market  is  secondary  in  importance,  the  market 
at  home  being  the  one  in  which  the  great  mass  of  domestic  products  must  be  sold 
and  consumed.  That  foreigners  either  partly  or  wholly  pay  a  very  considerable 
amount  of  the  duties  levied  on  imports,  and  thus  are  forced  to  contribute  to  the 
support  of  our  Government  as  an  offset  to  the  privilege  of  our  markets,  diminish 
ing  the  taxes  that  otherwise  would  have  to  be  paid  by  our  own  people.  That 
railroad  construction  and  transportation  have  been  cheapened  by  the  tariff  on 
rails.  That  the  "sell  dear,  buy  cheap"  maxim  is  merely  a  delusive  form  of 
words.  That  an  increasing  proportion  of  manufactures  enters  into  our  domestic 
exports  under  the  Protective  system.  That  Protection  is  highly  beneficial  to  the 
manufacturer,  as  well  as  to  the  public,  notwithstanding  that  it  operates  to  reduce 
the  prices  of  his  products.  And  that  the  price  of  everything  the  farmer  has  to 
buy  has  been  cheapened  by  Protection. 

For  these  propositions,  and  for  the  facts,  figures,  and  arguments  adduced  in 
their  behalf,  I  ask,  in  the  interest  of  truth  and  of  patriotism,  the  earnest  atten 
tion  of  the  reader. 

D.  H.  MASON. 

Chicago,  November,  1875. 


HOW  WESTERN  FARMERS  ARE  BENEFITED  BY 
PROTECTION. 


CHAPTER    I. 

OUR    MARKETS,   THE    HOME   AND   THE   FOREIGN. 

vast  importance  of  the  foreign  market — the  dependence  of 
JL    Western  farmers  upon  the  foreign  market — the  danger  of  ob 
structing  the  foreign  market— these  are  subjects  upon  which  Free 
Trade  writers  and  speakers  lay  great  emphasis.     It  never  seems  to 
occur  to  these  persons  that  the  ho?ne  market  is  the  vital  consideration 
after  all.     In  the  home  market  the  bulk  of  our  productions  is  con 
sumed.     The  activity  of  the  home  market  forms  the  basis  of  indi 
vidual  and  national  prosperity.     Although  the  foreign  market  is 
valuable,  that  valuableness  is  not  primary,  but  secondary — valuable 
as  an  adjunct  or  appendix  to  internal  commerce  and  trade.     For 
eign  countries  take  only  a  very  small  proportion  of  our  products. 
In  the  census  year  1870  the  total  amount  of  our  manufactures  was 
$4,232,325,442,  and  of  farm  produce  $2,447,538,658,  or  $6,679,- 
864,100   for  both.     That  the  immense  quantity  of  articles   here 
represented,  except  a  small  fraction,  must  have  been  sold  and  con 
sumed  in  our  home  market,  is  plain  from  the  fact  that  the  aggregate 
of  our  exports  from  the  beginning  of  the  Government  to  June  30, 
1875,  covering  a  period  of  eighty-six  years,  was  just  $13,299,706,- 
575,  or  not  quite  double  the  value  of  our  manufactures  and  farm 
products  in  a  single  year.     Take  another  illustration :  According  to 
the  agricultural  reports  of  our  Government,  the  four  corn  crops  of 
1870,1871,  1872  and  1873  footed  up  4, 111,119,000  bushels,  and  the 

(7) 


OUR  MARKETS,  THE  HOME  AND  THE  FOREIGN. 


four  wheat  crops  997,858,900  bushels.  During  the  same  period  we 
exported  84,252,004  bushels  of  corn,  and  1,111,685  barrels  of 
Indian  meal,  the  whole  being  equal  to  89,254,587  bushels,  or  only 
2.17  per  cent,  of  the  product,  leaving  the  remainder,  or  nearly  98 
per  cent.,  to  find  buyers  and  consumers  in  the  United  States.  Of 
wheat,  in  the  same  time,  we  exported  136,516,386  bushels  ;  of  flour, 
12,193,795  barrels;  of  bread  and  biscuit,  46,209,780  pounds  :  these 
three  forms  of  the  grain  representing  198,688,751  bushels,  or  19.91 
per  cent,  of  the  product,  so  that  fully  four-filths  of  it  remained  in 
this  country  to  supply  the  local  demand.  Such  facts  conclusively 
show  that  the  home  market,  not  fas  foreign,  is  first  in  order  of  import 
ance  ;  is  the  one  which  offers  the  most  numerous  and  reliable  op 
portunities  for  effecting  exchanges ;  and  is  the  one  capable  ot  the 
largest  development.  To  expand,  sustain,  and  prosper  trjat  market 
are  prime  objects  of  the  Protective  policy. 

It  is  a  favorite  dogma  of  the  Free  Traders  that  a  high  tariff 
erects  barriers  to  commerce,  and  restricts  both  imports  and  exports, 
thus  tending  to  scarcity.  This,  however,  is  nothing  but  a  theory, 
and  is  a  libel  upon  the  facts,  as  we  shall  prove.  Below,  in  contrast, 
are  two  tabular  statements  of  exports  and  imports,  compiled  from 
the  official  reports,  covering  the  last  twenty-eight  fiscal  years : 


FOURTEEN   YEARS  UNDER  PARTIAL 

FOURTEEN  YEARS  UNDER 

.FREE  TRADE. 

PROTECTION. 

<*$. 

ft   c/i 

Domestic 

Import 

Exports  of 

•<? 

Domestic 

Import 

Exports  of 

\l 

Exports. 

Entries. 

Imports. 

|! 

Exports. 

Entries. 

Imports. 

1848 
1849 

$132,904,121 
132,666,955 

$154,998,928 
i47,857,439 

$21,128,010 
13,088,865 

1862 

1863 

$213,069,519 
305,884,998 

$205,862,518 
252,919,92° 

$16,869,466 
26,123,584 

1850 

i  36»946,9  i  2 

178,138,318 

14,951,808 

1864 

320,035,199 

329,565,115 

20,256,940 

1851 

196,689,718 

216,224,932 

21,698,293 

1865 

306,306,758 

234,434,i67 

30,390,365 

1852 

192,368,984 

208,296,855 

17,289,382 

1866 

550,684,277 

437,640,354 

14,742,117 

1853 

21314*7,697 

267,978,647 

17,558,460 

1867 

438,577,312 

417,831,571 

20,611,508 

1854 

253i390,87o!       30i,494i094 

23,748,514 

1868 

454,3Qi,7i3 

.  371,624,808 

22,601,126 

1855 

246,708,553 

261,468,520 

28,448,293 

1869 

413,961,115 

437,3M,255 

25»i73i4M 

1856 

310,586,330 

3M,639,942 

16,378,578; 

1870 

499,092,143 

462,377,5^71      30,427,159 

1857 

338,985,065 

360,890,141 

23,975,6i7 

1871 

562,518  651 

541,493,708       28,459,899 

1858 

293,758,279 

282,613,150 

30,886,142,    1872 

549,219,718 

640,338766]      22,769,749 

1859 

335,894.385 

338,768,130 

20,895,077 

1873 

649,I32,563 

663,617,147 

28,149,511 

1860 

373,180,274 

362,166,254 

26,933,022 

1874 

693,039,054 

595,861,248 

23,780,338 

1861 

227,966,169 

352,739,287 

20.645,427 

1875 

643,081,4331       553,906,253 

22,374,710 

Tot. 

$3)385,473,312 

$3,748,274,637 

$297,625,488' 

Tot. 

$6,598,904,453 

$6,144,787,417 

$332,729,886 

These  official  statistics  emphatically  contradict  the  Free  Trade 
dogma.  During  the  Protective  period  we  find  a  vast  expansion  of 
both  exports  and  imports;  not  the  alleged  restriction.  The  total  of 


OUR  MARKETS,  THE  HOME  AND  THE  FOREIGN.  9 

domestic  exports,  as  compared  with  that  in  the  period  of  partial 
Free  Trade,  exhibits  an  increase  of  94.9182  per  cent.,  while  a  like 
contrast  between  the  two  footings  of  import  entries  shows  an  aug 
mentation  of  63.9364  per  cent.  The  figures  of  exports  of  imports 
also  possess  great  significance.  Although  the  excess  in  the  last 
fourteen  years  over  the  previous  fourteen  was  $35,104,398,  equal  to 
an  advance  of  11.7948  per  cent.,  the  ratio  of  exports  of  imports  to 
import  entries  in  the  low- tariff  period  wa?  6.9403  per  cent.,  but  in 
the  high-tariff  period  only  5.4148  per  cent.,  making  it  very  clear 
that  under  Protection  we  retained  for  home  consumption  a  much 
larger  proportion  of  our  imports  than  we  did  under  partial  Free 
Trade. 

An  attempt  is  sometimes  made  to  parry  the  force  of  this  strong 
statistical  argument  by  saying  that  population  in  this  country  has 
more  than  doubled  since  the  passage  of  the  tariff  of  1846,  and  that, 
vast  as  our  exports  and  imports  have  been  in  recent  years,  they 
have  not  kept  pace  with  the  growth  of  numbers,  but  are  relatively 
to  the  mass  of  individuals  less  now  than  they  were  a  quarter  of  a 
century  ago.  Apparently  this  objection  is  well  founded,  yet  it  will 
not  bear  the  test  of  contact  with  the  realities  of  the  case.  Con 
clusively  to  settle  the  point,  we  have  obtained,  through  a  very  tedi 
ous  and  laborious  series  of  trial  calculations,  the  exact  per  cent,  of 
annual  increase  of  population  for  the  decades  ending  severally  in 
1850,  in  1860,  and  in  1870.  These  rates  are  so  minutely  accurate, 
that,  on  multiplying  the  census  enumeration  by  its  connected  per 
centum,  and  then,  after  pointing  off  and  discarding  the  decimal 
fraction,  adding  the  product  to  the  multiplicand  for  a  new  multi 
plicand,  and  repeating  the  process  for  the  remaining  years  of  the 
decennial  period,  the  final  result  will  be  found  identical  with  the 
official  count  of  the  people  for  the  current  decennary.  It  being  im 
possible  to  know  what  will  be  the  number  of  inhabitants  in  1880, 
we  have  assumed  that  the  rate  of  increase  since  1870  has  been  just 
what  it  was  during  the  decade  1850-60— an  exceedingly  liberal 
allowance,  considering  what  the  superintendent  of  the  ninth  cen 
sus  has  to  say  about  the  probable  increment.  Having  thus  obtained 
a  trustworthy  statement  of  the  population  in  each  year,  we  have 
employed  it  in  computing  the  per  capita  of  domestic  exports  and  of 
import  entries,  annually,  for  the  period  embraced  in  our  tables 
above.  Here  are  the  results  : 


10 


OUR  MARKETS, .THE  HOME  AND  THE  FOREIGN. 


FOURTEEN  YEARS  UNDER  PARTIAL 

FOURTEEN  YEARS  UNDER 

FREE  TRADE. 

PROTECTION. 

$ 

V 

1! 

Q^? 

or  c? 

III 

n 

i 

1! 

g    3   0 

5>  g  n 

til 

S-  5T  ^ 

III 

: 

rc  o* 

^   ^-  3 

•      *"d    rt 

(5  o' 

^-  r^ 

f       o' 

•     ^     Q 

: 

P>   D 

O>    3 

P   3 

• 

•       ^     ? 

:     |         i   5- 

:    =?  2, 

:    "  * 

: 

1     3 

i    ?  "i 

:    "  V    1    : 

1 

1848 

21,812,861 

3.112576 

$6.09.3 

$7.10.6 

1862 

32,752,651 

2.060815 

$6.50.5 

$6.28.5 

5.45.4 

6.57.5 

1863 

33,427,622 

9.15.1 

7.56.6 

1850 

5.90.5 

7.68.1 

1864 

34,116,503 

9.66.0 

1851  1    23,908,654 

3.090646 

8.22.7 

9.12.7 

34,819,581 



8.79.7 

6-73-3 

1852      24,647,585 

7.80  5 

8.45-1 

1866       35,537iI48 

15.49.6 

12.31.5 

1853          2S,  400,754 

8  39-9 

0.54.6 

1867       36,269,502 

12.09.2 

11.52  o 

9.67.3 

I    12.8 

l868          77.Ol6.OAO 

12.27.3 

10.03.9 

1855 

27,004,251 

„.,  «-,«  R-fi 

i     9'J3.9 

9.68.3 

1869 

37,779,800 
•3,8    SS8    77C 

10.95.7 
12.94.4 

n.57.5 
11.99.2 

1857  ;    28,699,256 

1858         r>n   cKfi  ?/i8 

II.8I.3 

9.92.9 

2.57.5 

9  55>2 

1871 
1872 

39'75°,C73 
40,978,607 

3.090646 

14-15.1 

13.40.3 

13.62.2 
15.62.6 

1859 

70,500,654 

11.01.3 

1.  10  7 

!  1873 

42,245,110 



.5.36.6 

15.70.9 

ii  86  8 

i  51  8 

15.91.3 

13.68.2 

1861 

32,091,309 

2.O6O8I5 

7.10.4 

0.99.2 

1875 

44,896,745 

14.32-4 

12.33-7 

Tot. 

374,820,694 

$9.03.2 

$10.00.0 

Tot.  !  531,699,418 

$12.41.1 

$11.55-7 

There  is  no  escape  from  the  proofs  offered  by  these  figures. 
They  show,  beyond  room  for  doubt,  that  domestic  exports  and  im 
port  entries  increased  faster  under  Protection  than  they  did  under 
partial  Free  Trade,  even  distributed  per  capita,  the  growth  of  com 
merce  and  trade  being  far  more  rapid  than  the  growth  of  popula 
tion.  The  average  per  individual  inhabitant,  during  the  second 
period  of  fourteen  years,  was  greater  by  $3.37.9  of  domestic  exports, 
equal  to  37.41 14  per  cent,  more  ;  and  by  $1.55. 7  of  import  entries, 
equal  to  15.57  per  cent,  increase.  Are  these  evidences  that  the 
Protective  policy  restricts  either  exports  or  imports,  and  tends  to 
scarcity?  Rather,  do  they  not  contradict  such  a  theory  with  all 
the  conclusive  force  of  positive  knowledge  ?  Our  mathematical 
refutation  of  the  absurd  dogma  of  the  Free  Traders  is  complete. 

Under  the  series  of  tariffs  since  1861  we  have  sold  more  abroad, 
and  bought  more  abroad,  of  a  wide  range  of  commodities,  than  we 
ever  did  before  in  a  like  term  of  years.  The  vastness  of  these  ex 
changes  may  be  made  appreciable  by  a  simple  illustration.  Our 
domestic  exports,  from  the  beginning  of  the  Government  to  June  30, 
1861,  amounted  to  $6.700,802,122;  for  the  fourteen  years  ending 
June  30,  1875,  to  $6,598,904,453,  the  latter  value  tjeing  98.4793 
per  cent,  of  the  former,  indicating  a  prodigious  growth  of  export 
power.  Further,  our  imports  retained  for  consumption,  during  the 


OUR  MARKETS,  THE  HOME  AND  THE  FOREIGN. 


seventy-two  years,  amounted  to  $7,487,067,366  ;  during  the  last 
fourteen  years,  to  $5,812,057,531,  or  to  77.628  per  cent,  of  the 
former  value,  exhibiting  an  immense  increase  of  import  power. 
These  marvelous  facts  and  figures  possess  the  attributes,  not  of  re 
striction  or  obstruction,  but  of  expansion.  What  an  abundance 
must  have  remained  to  be  consumed  at  home,  when  we  could  spare 
so  much  to  be  sent  abroad  !  What  a  remarkable  capacity  to  buy 
and  consume  foreign  goods  is  made  manifest  by  the  stupendous 
value  of  imports  retained  for  our  own  use  ! 

The  explanation  of  this  extraordinary  growth  of  both  export 
and  import  trade  is  to  be  found  in  the  activity,  enterprise,  and 
prosperity  of  the  home  market,  through  the  beneficial  operation  of 
the  Protective  policy  upon  domestic  industry.  That  policy  en- 
cquraged  manufactures  on  our  own  soil ;  diversified  employments  ; 
created  a  demand  for  labor;  advanced  the  rate  of  wages,  and 
conferred  purchasing  power  upon  the  masses  of  the  people.  It  is 
the  expenditure  of  earnings  that  energizes  commerce  and  trade. 
A  population  that  is  steadily  employed  and  well  paid  can  buy  and 
consume;  but  not  otherwise.  The  sum  of  social  misery  among  a 
people  can  be  measured  by  their  inability  to  obtain  wages.  Regu 
lar  employment  and  labor  fully  compensated  are  the  fruitful  parents 
of  general  prosperity,  content,  and  cheerfulness.  Where  there  is 
work  for  the  hands  of  men,  there  is  work  for  their  teeth,  clothes 
for  their  bodies,  shelter  for  their  heads,  fuel  for  their  warmth, 
instruction  for  their  minds,  and  progress  for  their  condition.  The 
Protective  policy,  by  conferring  purchasing  power,  caused  an  in 
creasing  demand  for  all  these  things;  and,  by  stimulating,  the 
productive  forces,  satisfied  that  demand.  Services  easily  found 
employment,  and  the  circulation  of  commodities  from  hand  to 
hand  became  rapid.  The  home  market,  formerly  sluggish,  was 
converted  into  a  scene  of  enterprise  and  thrift ;  abundance  became 
the  order  of  the  day ;  and  both  exports  and  imports  expanded  to 
unprecedented  values.  A  prosperous  foreign  trade  is  inseparably 
connected  with  a  prosperous  home  market.  There  must  be  a  large 
development  of  internal  commerce  before  there  can  be  a  large 
development  of  external  commerce.  No  more  than  an  individual 
can  a  nation  exert  great  strength  outwardly  unless  such  strength 
exists  inwardly.  To  neglect  the  home  market,  by  reaching  out 
after  the  foreign,  is  to  neglect  the  substance  to  pursue  a  phantom. 


12  OUR  EXPORTS  OF  WHEAT. 


CHAPTER    II. 

OUR    EXPORTS    OF    WHEAT. 

IT  is  a  dogma  of  the  Free  Traders  that  Western  farmers,  of  all 
classes,  are  the  greatest  sufferers  by  the  Protective  policy— 
that  our  present  tariff  system  operates  to  reduce  the  price  of  every 
thing  the  farmer  has  to  sell,  and  to  increase  the  price  of  everything 
he  has  to  buy.  Although  these  allegations  are  contradicted  by 
experience,  they  have  obtained  credence  in  various  quarters 
through  the  mere  dint  of  reiteration  that  was  not  immediately 
antagonized  and  shown  to  be  false.  But  the  people  have  been  too 
much  imposed  on  any  longer  to  accept  statements  about  facts  unless 
accompanied  by  the  facts  themselves.  The  day  has  gone  by  in 
which  unsupported  assertions  exerted  a  strong  influence  upon  the 
popular  mind.  Only  arguments  and  proofs  find  favor  now. 

We  intend  to  make  that  kind  of  appeal  in  this  article.  Taking 
wheat  as  an  illustration,  we  shall  show  that  our  farmers  sell  more  of 
that  grain  abroad,  have  a  steadier  market  for  it,  and  receive  better 
prices,  under  the  policy  of  Protection,  than  they  did  under  the 
policy  of  partial  Free  Trade.  The  figures  offered  below  are 
derived  from  the  Commerce  and  Navigation  Reports,  published  by 
our  own  Government,  and,  being  official,  are  therefore  competent 
and  reliable  witnesses.  First,  we  give  the  total  quantity  and  value 
of  wheat  exported  in  each  of  the  years  specified,  to  which  we  have 
added  a  calculation  of  the  average  price  per  bushel  in  the  port  of 
departure— a  calculation  the  accuracy  of  which  any  schoolboy  can 
verify — the  fraction  of  a  cent  being  extended  to  three  decimal 
places  for  the  sake  of  greater  exactness.  The  first  table  covers  a 
period  of  thirteen  years  under  partial  Free  Trade;  the  second,  an 
equal  period  under  our  Protective  system.  Observe  the  signal 
contrast  which  contradicts  at  every  point  the  allegation  we  antag 
onize. 


OUR  EXPORTS  OF  WHEAT. 


15 


EXPORTS'  UNDER   PARTIAL    FREE 
TRADE. 

EXPORTS  UNDER  OUR  PROTECTIVE 
SYSTEM. 

Fiscal 
Years. 

Bushels. 

Values. 

Average 
price 
per  bush. 

Fiscal 
Years. 

Bushels. 

Values. 

Average 
price 
per  bush. 

1849  
1850  
1851  
1852.... 

i,527-534 
608,661 
1,026,725 
2,694,540 
3,890,141 
8,036,665 
798,884 
8,154,877 
I4,57°.33I 
8,926,196 
3,002,016 
4,I55,i53 
31,238,057 

$1,756,848 
643,745 
1,025,732 

2,555,209 

4,354,4°3 
12,420,172 
1,329,246 
15,115,661 
22,240,857 
9,061,504 
2,849,192 
4,076,704 
38,313,624 

$1.15.012 
1.05.764 
.99.903 
.94.829 
1.11.934 
1-54-545 
1.66.388 
I-85.357 
1-52.645 
1.01.516 
.94.909 
.98.112 
1.22.650 

1862..       . 
1863.. 
1864..       . 
1865..        . 
1866.. 
1867.. 
1868..       . 
1869..  .    . 
!  1870  
!i87r  
1872  
1873  
1874  

37,289,572 
36,160,414 
23,681,712 
9>937,I52 
5,579,io3 
6,146,411 
15,940,899 
'7,557,836 
36,584,115 
34,304,906 
26,423,080 
39,204,285 
71,039,928 

$42,573,295 
46,754,195 
3I,432,I33 
I9-397,I97 
7,842,749 
7,822,555 
30,247,632 

24,383,259 
47,171,229 
45,143,424 
38,915,060 
51,452,254 
101,421,459 

$1.14.169 
.29.296 
.32.727 
.95.200 
.40.574 
.27.270 
.89.748 
.38.874 
.28.939 
•31-595 
•47-277 
.31.241 
.42.767 

1853  
1854  
1855  
1856  
1857  
1858  
1859  
1860  
1861  

Totals  

88,629,  780'  $"5,742.897 

!    Totals.... 

359,849,4J3 

$494,556,441 

Ann'l  av. 

6,817,676!      $8,903,300 

$1.30.591 

Ann'l  av. 

27,680,724 

$38,042,803 

$1-37-434 

These  statistics  conclusively  show  that  we  exported,  in  the  Free 
Trade  period,  only  245  per  cent,  of  the  quantity  and  only  232 
per  cent,  of  the  value  that  were  exported  in  the  Protective  period  ; 
or,  to  state  the  case  differently,  we  exported  more  by  271,219,633 
bushels  and  $378,813,544  in  the  second  thirteen  years  than  we  did 
in  the  first  thirteen.  Besides,  we  had  gained  in  average  price  6.843 
cents  per  bushel.  More  than  that,  the  quantity  and  value  of  wheat 
exported  in  the  years  1862-74  are  much  greater  than  the  quantity 
and  value  exported  from  the  beginning  of  the  Government  to  July 
i,  1 86 1,  covering  a  period  of  seventy-two  years.  Even  in  the  three 
fiscal  years,  1862,  1863,  and  1864,  we  exported  8,501,918  bushels 
more  than  during  the  entire  period  of  thirteen  years  under  partial 
Free  Trade.  Taking  1874  by  itself,  we  exported  in  that  twelve 
month  801  per  cent,  of  the  quantity,  and  87!  per  cent,  of  the 
value,  exported  between  June  30,  1848,  and  July  i,  1861,  at  an 
average  increase  of  121  cents  per  bushel.  It  is  very  evident 
from  these  facts  that  the  policy  of  Protect  ion  to  home  industry 
does  not  act  repressively  upon  the  farmer's  export  markets,  as  re 
gards  either  quantity  or  price.  Partial  Free  Trade  certainly  would 
have  done  so,  because  that  policy,  by  dwarfing  the  number  and 
extent  of  our  manufacturing  establishments,  would  have  diminished 
the  number  of  persons  in  this  country  who  were  consumers  without 
being  producers  of  wheat,  and  thus  would  have  left  a  larger  surplus 
for  export,  which,  as  a  more  copious  supply  in  the  presence  of  a 


14  OUR  EXPORTS  OF  WHEAT. 


demand  not  augmented,  must,  through  increased  competition  for 
sale  abroad,  have  resulted  in  a  reduction  of  prices.  Those  low  prices, 
unremunerative  to  the  farmer,  would  have  reacted  injuriously  upon 
agriculture  ;  and  he  would  soon  have  ceased  to  grow  wheat  beyond 
what  he  could  sell  at  a  profit.  Thus  does  Free  Trade  dry  up  his 
resources,  while  his  expenses  are  greatly  increased  ;  since  all  man 
ufactured  articles — the  necessaries  as  well  as  the  conveniences  of 

life rise  in  cost  as  producer  recedes  to  a  greater  distance  from 

consumer. 

Under  Protection,  the  farmer  finds  a  readier  and  steadier  market 
for  his  surplus  produce.  Observe  how  our  statistical  tables  support 
this  statement.  Notice  the  hop-skip-and-jump  sort  of  demand 
abroad  exhibited  during  the  first  thirteen  years,  and  then  see  the 
copious  and  expanding  exports  in  the  second  period,  interrupted, 
it  is  true,  for  a  while,  by  the  war  of  secession,  but  afterward 
mounting  up  by  strides.  While  hostilities  were  raging,  soldiers, 
engaged  by  the  hundred  thousand  in  the  work  of  destruction,  had 
to  be  fed;  and  when  they  returned  to  the  arts  of  peace,  a  half- 
starved  South,  with  desolated  farms  and  almost  exhausted  supplies 
of  food,  had  to  be  provided.  These  disturbances  over,  and  com 
merce  once  more  returned  to  its  wonted  channels,  exports  of  wheat 
augmented  with  strengthening  rapidity.  On  the  contrary,  the 
period  of  partial  Free  Trade  displays  very  great  irregularity  and 
unsteadiness.  In  1853  the  export  was  3,890,1/11  bushels;  in  1854 
the  quantity  bounded  to  8,036,665  ;  in  1855  it  dropped  like  a  shot 
to  798,884;  in  1856  rushed  up  to  8,154,877;  in  1857  was  lifted, 
freshet-like,  to  14,570,331  ;  in  1858  tumbled  to  8,926,196  ;  and  in 
1859  further  to  3,002,016.  We  look  in  vain  for  such  marked, 
zig-zag  fluctuations  under  our  system  of  Protection. 

But  our  statistics,  as  presented,  exhibit  only  part  of  the  facts. 
All  exports  from  the  Pacific  ports  stand  for  gold  values.  There 
fore,  we  must  separate  and  subtract  those  from  the  currency  values 
in  order  to  obtain  an  accurate  statement  of  the  latter.  We  have 
done  so.  The  following  table  gives  a  detailed  exhibit  of  the  ex 
ports  of  wheat,  at  currency  values,  from  all  Atlantic  and  Gulf 
ports,  showing  number  of  bushels  exported,  percentage  of  total  ex 
ports  of  United  States,  their  values,  percentage  of  total  value  ex 
ported,  and  average  price  per  bushel : 


OUR  EXPORTS  OF  WHEAT. 


16 


Fiscal 
Years. 

Bushels. 

Per  centage  of 
total  quantity 
exported. 

Values. 

Per  centage  of 
total  value 
exported. 

Average  price 
per  bushel. 

1862  
186^  
1864  
1865  
1866 

35,749,502 

34,383^47 
21,887,946 

9,88i,343 
* 

95.870 
95-085 
92.426 
^99.438 

$40,876,683 
44,796,485 
29,724,187 
19,284,430 
* 

96.015 
95.8i3 
94567 
99.419 

$1.14.342 
1.30.286 
1.35.792 
1.95.160 

1867  ...  . 
1868.... 
1869  
1870  
1871.... 
1872  
1873  
1874  ... 

1,254,789 
10,388,449 
11,968,089 
28,619,293 
28,038,788 
235803,990 
22,325,152 
57»843»a53 

20.415 
65.168 
68  164 
78.229 
8i.734 
90.088 
56946 
81.424 

2,419,553 
20,277,002 
18,092,651 
38,926,139 
37,637,325 
35,276.985 
33,230,745 
84,602,636 

3°-93° 
67.037 
74-205 
82.521 
83.373 
90.651 
64.586 
83.417 

1.92.825 
1.95.188 
1.51.174 
1.36.014 
1-34233 
1.48.198 
1.48.898 
1.46.262 

Totals. 

286,143,741 

81.068 

$405,144,821 

83.507 

$1.41.588 

A  comparison  between  these  prices  and  those  in  the  period  of 
partial  Free  Trade  indicates  a  large  balance  of  advantages  in  favor 
of  the  policy  of  Protection.  The  average  export  price  is  some 
eleven  cents  higher  per  bushel.  We  know  that  the  common  reply 
is  that  these  represent  prices  in  depreciated  paper  money,  while 
those  under  the  tariffs  of  1846  and  1857  represent  gold;  but 
there  is  no  force  in  this  objection.  Our  farmers  who  sold  their 
wheat  in  the  Chicago  market  during  the  years  before  the  war  must 
have  a  vivid  recollection  of  the  "red-dog,"  the  "stump-tail,"  and 
the  "wild-cat"  currency  of  the  period.  It  is  sheer  nonsense  to 
talk  of  such  paper  money  having  been  equivalent  to  gold;  a  circu 
lating  medium  whose  value  was  fixed  from  time  to  time,  by  edicts 
of  the  railroad  companies,  as  receivable  by  them  for  freights  and 
fares;  a  currency  that  often  was  uncurrent  a  hundred  miles  from 
home,  and  that  would  not  buy  New  York  exchange  without  suffer 
ing  a  considerable  shave.  Who  wants  to  give  up  greenbacks  or 
national  bank  notes  in  order  to  get  back  that  miserable  stuff  in 
which  our  farmers  were  paid  for  their  wheat  ? 

There  is  another  very  important  phase  to  the  subject.  During 
the  war,  when  the  gold  premium  was  so  high,  our  farmers,  who  had 
got  deeply  in  debt  amid  the  great  prosperity  claimed  to  have  been 
conferred  upon  them  by  partial  Free  Trade,  were  rapidly  clearing  off 
mortgages  and  other  incumbrances  upon  their  property.  Green 
backs  being  legal  tenders,  every  dollar  of  them  devoted  by  our 
farmers  to  the  payment  of  debts  contracted  before  the  war  was 
equivalent  to  a  dollar  in  coin,  no  matter  how  extravagant  the 


*  Not  separately  stated  in  the  Commerce  and  Navigation  Report  for  that  year. 


16  OUR  EXPORTS  OF  WHEAT. 


premium  on  gold  might  be.  Our  farmers  obtained  the  full  benefit 
of  the  high  prices  at  which  they  sold  their  produce. 

Besides,  the  farmer  to-day  is  able  to  pocket  a  larger  proportion 
of  the  current  price  for  wheat  than  he  did  in  the  years  before  the 
war.  Then  a  very  considerable  portion  of  the  grain  sent  to  Chi 
cago  arrived  by  wagon  or  by  canal.  The  cost  of  getting  to  market 
ate  a  large  hole  in  the  farmer's  profits,  and  sometimes  left  none  at 
all.  Now  the  facilities  for  transportation  are  much  more  numerous, 
much  more  extensive,  and  much  cheaper.  This  lessened  cost  of 
conveyance  adds  value  to  the  price  of  wheat  at  the  farm,  and  such 
increase  is  realized  by  the  producer.  Moreover,  this  solid  benefit 
is  an  outgrowth  of  the  policy  of  Protection,  which  gave,  as  part  of 
the  general  stimulus  to  domestic  industry,  a  powerful  impulse  to 
the  construction  of  railroads,  accompanied  by  large  improvements 
in  rolling  stock,  road-beds,  bridges,  station-buildings,  and  acces 
sories  for  the  cheap  handling  of  grain. 

Taking  wheat  as  an  example,  we  think  we  have  conclusively 
shown  that  Western  farmers  are  not  repressively  or  injuriously 
acted  upon  by  the  policy  of  Protection,  but  have  received  from  it 
some  very  important  and  substantial  benefits.  Then  why  should 
not  farmers  favor  Protection  to  home  industry? 


EXPORTS  OF  WHEAT  FLOUR. 


17 


CHAPTER  III. 

EXPORTS    OF   WHEAT    FLOUR. 

ON  turning  to  the  exports  of  wheat  flour,  we  find  a  state  of  facts 
which  again  and  further  contradicts  the  dogmatic  assertions 
made  by  the  Free  Traders  about  the  depressing  influences  of  Pro 
tective-tariffs  upon  agricultural  prosperity.  Below  are  the  official 
figures  of  quantities  and  values  of  flour  exported  from  the  United 
States  in  each  of  twenty-six  consecutive  years,  to  which  we  have 
added  a  calculation  of  the  average  price  per  barrel,  the  fraction  of 
a  cent  being  extended  to  three  decimal  places  for  the  sake  of 
greater  exactness. 


THIRTEEN  YEARS   UNDER   PARTIAL 
FREE  TRADE. 


j  THIRTEEN  YEARS  UNDER  OUR  PROTECT 
IVE  SYSTEM. 


Fiscal 
Years. 

Barrels. 

Values. 

Average 
price 
per  barrel. 

Fiscal 
Years. 

Barrels. 

Values. 

Average 
price 
per  barrel. 

1849  

2,108,013 

$11,280,582 

$5-35.129 

1862.... 

4,882,033 

$27,534.295     $5.63.990 

1850  

1,385,448 

7,098,570 

5-12.366 

1863  

4,39°'°55 

28,366,069       6.46.144 

'851  

2,202,335]      10,524,331 

4.77.871 

1864  

3.557,347 

25,588,249!      7.19.310 

1852  

2,799,339 

11,869,143 

423.998 

1865  

2,604,542 

27,222,031 

10.45.175 

1853  

2,920,918        14,783,394 

5.06.122 

1866  

2,183,050 

18,396,686       8.42.706 

1854  

4,022,386 

27,701,444]      6.88.682 

1867  

1,300,106 

12,803,775;      9.84.825 

1855  

1,204,540 

10,896,908       9.04.653 

1868...    . 

2,076,423 

20,887,798      10.05.950 

1856  

3,510,626 

29,275,148 

8.33.901 

1869  

2.431,873 

18,813,865 

7-73-637 

1857  

3,7i2,053 

25,882,316 

6.97-253 

1870  

3,463,333 

21,169,593 

6.11.249 

1858  

3,512,169 

19,328,884 

5.5°.340 

1871  

3,653,841 

24,093,184 

6.59.393 

1859  
1860  

2,431,824 
2,611,596 

14.433.591 

15,448,507 

5.93.529)  11872  
5.91,535     1873  

2,5M,535 
2,562,086 

I7>955,684|      7.14.076 
19,381,664       7.56.480 

1861  

4,323,756 

24,645,849 

5.70.010 

1874  

4,094,094 

29,258,094 

7.14.641 

Totals.... 

36,745,003    $223  168,667 

Totals.... 

39,7i3,3i8   $291,470,987 

Ann'l  av. 

2,826,539     $17,166,821 

$6.07.344! 

Ann'l  av. 

3,054,871     $22,420,845 

$7.33.938 

Here  we  see  that  the  quantity  was  larger,  the  value  was  greater, 
and  the  price  was  higher,  under  the  policy  of  Protection  than 
under  the  policy  of  partial  Free  Trade.  Are  these  evidences  that 
the  interests  of  agriculture  are  injuriously  affected  by  our  present 
tariff  system  ?  The  average  price  during  the  second  thirteen 
years  was  $1.26  594  more  per  barrel  than  during  the  first  thirteen. 


18 


EXPORTS  OF  WHEAT  FLOUR. 


Does  this  show  that  the  Protective  policy  is  detrimental  to  the 
prosperity  of  Western  farmers?  If  the  39.713,318  barrels  of  flour 
exported  in  the  Protective  period  had  been  sent  abroad  at  the  same 
average  price  received  for  the  36,745,003  barrels  exported  in  the 
period  of  partial  Free  Trade,  then  the  total  export  value  would 
have  amounted  to  only  $241,196,454,  instead  of  $291,470,987 — 
the  sum  actually  realized — making  a  difference,  which  would  have 
been  a  loss,  of  $50,274,533.  Is  that  value  of  more  than  fifty 
million  dollars,  which  represents  a  positive  gain,  to  be  regarded  as 
part  of  the  baneful  effects  produced  upon  our  agriculture  by  the 
series  of  tariffs  since  1861  ?  Are  better  prices  and  larger  sales 
usually  looked  upon  as  very  serious  evils,  and  as  oppressive  to  the 
grain-grower?  We  put  these  questions  to  the  common  sense  of  the 
reader. 

The  case  will  appear  in  a  light  still  stronger  and  clearer  if  we 
subtract  the  exports  of  flour  from  the  Pacific  ports,  at  gold  prices, 
from  the  exports  from  the  Atlantic  and  Gulf  ports,  at  currency 
prices,  and  thus  obtain  an  accurate  statement  of  the  latter.  The 
following  table  gives  a  detailed  exhibit  of  such  exports. 


Fiscal 
Years. 

Barrels. 

Percentage  of 
total  quantity 
exported. 

Values. 

Percentage  of 
total  value 
exported. 

Average  price 
per  barrel. 

1862.... 

4,778,311 

97-875 

$26,920,234 

97.768 

$3-63-384 

1863.... 

4,238,219 

96.541 

27,509,183 

96.979 

6.49.074 

1864.... 

3,386,192 
2,548,012 

95.189 
^97.830 

24,677,190 
26,707,171 

96.440 
98.109 

7.28.759 
10.48.155 

1867...    . 
1868... 
1869...    . 

1,004,1  10 
1,781,769 
2,016,320 

77.233 
85.810 
82.912 

11,171,241 
19.126,196 
16,604,069 

87.250 
91.566 
88.254 

11.12.552 
10.73.439 
8.23.484 

1870...    . 
1871...    . 

3,102,192 
3,429,697 

89.572 
93.866 

19,425,761 
22,766,553 

94-494 

6.26.195 
663.807 

1872...    . 
1873...    . 
1874...    . 

2,224,751 
2,259,840 

3,389iTI9 

88.476 
88.203 
82.781 

16,184,006 
17,861,622 
24,870,819 

92.157 
85.005 

7>90-393 

7-33.843 

Totals. 

34,158,532 

?i-459 

$253,824,045 

93-395 

$7-43-°77 

These  are  the  quantities,  values,  and  prices  in  which  Western 
farmers  are  directly  interested.  The  proof  is  that  the  average  ex 
port  price  under  the  policy  of  Protection  has  been  $1.35-733  more 
per  barrel  than  under  the  policy  of  partial  Free  Trade.  How  ter 
ribly  our  farmers  have  suffered  from  our  present  tariff  system ! 
An  increase  of  22^  per  cent,  in  the  average  export  price  of  flour 


*  Not  separately  stated  in  the  Commerce  and  Navigation  Report  for  that  year. 


EXPORTS  OF  WHEAT  FLOUR.  19 


is,  from  the. farmer's  standpoint,  a  lamentable  evidence  of  tariff 
spoliation — according  to  the  Chicago  Tribune  ! 

The  ready  answer  comes  back,  that  the  above  prices  stand  for 
depreciated  and  irredeemable  paper-money;  are  reckoned  in  that 
worthless  trash  called  greenbacks;  while  the  prices  under  partial 
Free  Trade  are  really  higher,  although  nominally  lower,  because 
they  represent  the  purchasing  power  of  gold.  It  is  about  time  to 
sweep  this  pernicious  error  into  the  general  pile  of  useless  rubbish. 
Here  is  what  was  thought  and  written  about  this  wonderful  gold-base 
currency,  when  it  was  in  circulation.  We  copy  from  the  "Sixth 
Annual  Review  of  the  Commerce,  Manufactures,  and  the  Public 
and  Private  Improvements  of  Chicago,  for  the  year  1857,"  pub 
lished  from  the  columns  of  the  Chicago  Daily  Press.  Our  extract 
appears  on  page  25,  as  follows: 

Till  the  1 2th  of  last  September,  for  nearly  four  years  past,  the  range  for  ex 
change  on  New  York  has  been  three-quarters  of  one  per  cent.,  the  variation  being 
from  i}4@  K'  Per  cent,  premium.  As  most  of  our  readers  have  had  occasion 
to  feel,  since  September  the  price  has  been  ruinously  high;  but  such  has  been 
the  determination  of  our  mercantile  community  to  maintain  their  honor  untarn 
ished  that  enormous  sacrifices  have  been  cheerfully  made  to  meet  maturing  obli 
gations.  Ten  per  cent,  has  been  the  highest  tbrice  charged  by  the  regular  bankers  ; 
but  for  many  days  during  the  last  three  months  they  have  had  nont  to  sell  even  at 
these  figtires.  Twelve  and  even  fifteen  per  cent,  has  been  paid  by  parties  to  the 
brokers  for  small  amounts,  rather  than  have  notes  protested. 

These  enormous  prices  for  exchange  have  cost  our  city  an  immense  amount  of 
money;  but  as  a  whole  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  has  been  a  great  and  posi 
tive  advantage  to  our  trade  to  do  it.  IT  WAS  CAUSED  BY  THE  IM 
POSSIBILITY  OF  CONVERTING  THE  BILLS  OF  THE  ILLINOIS  AND 
WISCONSIN  BANKS  INTO  COIN.  *  *  *  For  a  time  no  one  dared  to 
keep  an  account  in  St.  Louis,  for  nearly  all  the  banks  and  bankers  failed  or  were 
considered  in  a  most  precarious  condition. 

Such  was  the  paper  money,  equivalent  to  gold,  in  which  our 
farmers  were  paid  for  their  grain,  and  which,  as  is  asserted,  pos 
sessed  a  greater  purchasing  power  than  greenbacks.  What  a  mock 
ery  of  the  facts  ! 

Even  if  we  take  the  false  method  usually  employed  to  reduce 
currency  prices  to  equivalent  gold,  we  shall  arrive  at  results  which 
emphatically  contradict  the  assertion  that  the  assumed  coin  values, 
embodied  in  average  export  prices  under  partial  Free  Trade,  rep 
resent  higher  coin  values  than  the  average  export  prices  in  currency 
under  the  Protective  policy.  For  example,  take  the  following: 


20 


EXPORTS  OF  WHEAT  FLOUR. 


COMPARATIVE  STATEMENT  OF  AVERAGE  EXPORT  PRICES  PER  BARREL. 


Fiscal  Years. 

Gold  Prices. 

Fiscal  Years. 

PacificCoast 
Gold  Prices. 

Currency 
Prices. 

Gold  value 
of  a  paper 
dollar. 

Currency 
prices    re 
duced  to  gold. 

1858  
J859 

$5.50.340 
5.93.529 
5-9'-535 
5.70.010 

1871 
1872 
1873 
1874 

$5.91.865 
6.11.379 
5.02.915 
6.22.331 

46.63.807 
7-27.454 
7-9°-393 
7.33-343 

88.7 
89.4  ' 
87.3 
89.3 

$5.88.796 
6.50.343 
6.90.013 
6.S3-321 

1860  

1861  

These  statistics  are  given  merely  for  the  purpose  of  fighting  the 
Free  Traders  on  their  own  ground.  We  place  no  reliance  in  such 
reductions  of  currency  to  gold,  because  the  gold  value  of  a  paper 
dollar,  averaged  for  a  year,  for  a  month,  or  even  for  a  single  day,  can 
be  obtained  only  by  violating  arithmetical  rule.  Of  course,  the  out 
come  of  such  a  process  must  be  false.  Still,  as  Free  Traders  insist 
on  thus  violating  arithmetical  rule,  we  are  justified  in  showing  that 
even  there  do  they  find  no  support  for  their  argument.  Let  it  be 
observed,  therefore,  that  the  currency  prices  reduced  to  gold  are 
higher  than  those  under  partial  Free  Trade  ;  and  that,  with  the 
exception  of  the  year  1858,  they  are  higher  than  the  gold  prices  of 
the  Pacific  Coast.  Now,  in  view  of  all  these  exhibits,  by  what 
right,  or  with  what  reason,  can  it  be  asserted  that  Western  farmers 
are  repressively  and  injuriously  acted  upon  by  the  policy  of  Pro 
tection  to  home  industry? 


EXPORTS  OF  INDIAN   CORN. 


21 


i 


CHAPTER  IV. 

EXPORTS    OF    INDIAN    CORN. 

N  continuance  of  our  plan  of  giving  facts  instead  of  assertions 
about  the  facts,  as  Free  Trade  journals  do,  we  will  next  show  that 
farmers  have  received,  under  the  policy  of  Protection  to  home  in 
dustry,  higher  prices  for  corn,  and  that  larger  quantities  of  it  have 
been  exported,  than  under  the  policy  of  partial  Free  Trade.  Here 
are  the  official  figures  of  our  domestic  exports  of  Indian  corn  for 
the  past  twenty-six  years,  to  which  we  have  added  a  calculation  of 
the  average  price  per  bushel. 


THIRTEEN    YEARS  UNDER   PARTIAL 

THIRTEEN  YEARS  UNDER  THE  POLICY 

FREE  TRADE. 

OF  PROTECTION. 

Fiscal 
Years. 

Bushels. 

Values. 

Average 
price 
per  bushel. 

Fiscal 
Years. 

Bushels. 

Values. 

Average 
price 
per  bushel. 

1849.... 

i3,257-3°9 

$7,966,369 

$0.60.090 

1862...  . 

18,904,898 

$10,387,383 

$0.54.945 

1850  

6,595,092 

3,892,193 

.59.016 

1863  

16,119,476       10,592,704;        .65.714 

1851  
1852  

3,426,811 
2,627,075 

1,762,549 
1,540,225 

•  5I-434 
.58.629! 

1864  
1865  

4,096,6841        3,353,28o 
2,812,726:        3,679,133 

.81.853 
1.30.803 

1853  
I854--  •  • 

2,274,909 
7,768,816 

1  ,374,077 
6,074,277 

.60.401 
.78.188 

1866  
1867  

13,516,651 
14,889,823 

11,070,395         .81.902 
14,871,092         .99-874 

1855-  •  • 
1856..  .  . 

7,807,585 
10,292,280 

6,961,571 
7,622,565 

.89.164 
.74.061 

1868  ..  .. 
1869  

11,147,490,      13,094,036 
7,o47,i97'        6,820,719 

1.17.462 
.96.786 

1857..  .  . 

7,5°5,3I8 

5.l84,666 

.69.080 

1870  

1,392,115;        1,287,575 

.92.490 

1858..  .  . 

4,766,145 

3,259,039 

.68.379 

1871  

9,826,309!        7,458,997 

.75-908 

1859..  .  . 

1,719,998 

1,323,103 

.76.925 

1872  

34,491,650 

23,984,365 

•69.537 

1860..  . 
1861..  .  . 

3,3M,i55 
10,678,244 

2,399,808 
6,890,865 

.72.411 
.64.532 

1873  
1874  

38,54T,93° 
34,434,606 

23,794,694 
24,769,951 

•61.737 
•71-933 

Totals. 

82,033,737 

$56,251,307 

Totals. 

207,221,555 

$155,164,324 

An.  av. 

6,310,287 

$4,327,024 

$0.68.571 

An.  av. 

15,940,120 

$11,935,717 

$0.74.878 

These  statistics  establish  the  fact  that,  during  thirteen  years  of 
Protection,  the  average  export  price  of  corn  was  very  nearly  6y$ 
cents  per  bushel  more  than  it  was  during  the  previous  thirteen 
years  of  Free  Trade  policy.  Is  that  evidence  that  Western  farmers 
have  been  plundered  by  the  series  of  tariffs  since  1861?  If  the 
207,221,555  bushels  exported  in  the  period  1862-74  had  obtained 
no  greater  export  price,  on  an  average,  than  $0.68.571,  such  having 


22  EXPORTS  OF  INDIAN  CORN. 


been  the  average  for  the  period  1849-61,  then  the  amount  real 
ized  would  have  been  only  $142,093,891.10,  instead  of  the  $155,- 
164,324  actually  received,  so  that  the  loss  would  have  been  $13,- 
070,432.90.  Does  that  increase  of  more  than  thirteen  million  dollars 
constitute  part  of  the  proofs  that  the  country  is  going  from  bad  to 
worse,  and  that  the  people  generally,  and  the  Western  farmers 
particularly,  are  being  impoverished,  all  on  account  of  Protective 
duties?  The  exports  in  the  second  period,  at  the  higher  average 
price,  were  152.6  per  cent,  larger  than  the  exports  in  the  first 
period,  at  the  lower  price.  Is  that  copious  and  extraordinary  gain 
in  export  quantity,  coupled  with  a  more  remunerative  value,  fur 
ther  indication  of  the  baneful  effects  produced  upon  Western  far 
mers  by  our  present  tariff  system?  Rather,  may  it  not  be  that  the 
highly-wrought  picture  of  wrongs  and  outrages  suffered  by  the 
agricultural  classes,  under  the  policy  of  Protection  to  home  indus 
try,  as  paraded  before  the  public,  with  a  great  blare  of  announcing 
trumpets,  by  Free  Traders,  is  merely  a  picture  painted  by  the 
imagination — is  only  a  delineation  of  non-existent  circumstances 
which  are  at  sixes  and  sevens  with  the  truth?  Between  the  real 
facts  and  the  alleged  facts  there  is  an.  utter  want  of  correspondence. 
So  soon  as  the  children  of  experience  are  put  on  the  witness-stand, 
they  testify  against  the  Free  Traders.  It  is  sheer  nonsense  to  argue 
the  tariff  question,  as  some  do,  in  such  a  way  as  virtually  to 
maintain  that  assertions  are  stronger  supports  of  argument  than 
facts. 

The  swift  answer  comes  back  that,  while  farmers  may  have  ob 
tained  higher  prices  for  their  produce  under  the  policy  of  Protec 
tion  than  they  did  under  the  policy  of  partial  Free  Trade,  yet 
"  the  American  producer  has  received  in  exchange  for  his  exports 
from  one-quarter  to  one-third  less  in  quantity  in  other  commodi 
ties,  such  as  iron,  and  cotton  and  woolen  clothing,  than  he  did  be 
tween  1846  and  1861."  This  mode  of  putting  the  case  is  the  same 
old  dogmatic  plan — assertion  without  proof.  In  reply,  we  quote 
from  the  editorial  columns  of  the  Industrial  Age,  of  Chicago,  May 
i,  1875,  as  follows  : 

It  is  surprising  to  see  a  blanket  monopoly  sheet,  that  pretends  to  wield  influ 
ence,  boldly  assert  that  the  prices  of  goods  are  one-third  higher  now  than  in  1857, 
when  a  comparison  of  prices  then  with  the  commercial  columns  of  this  same 
paper  flatly  contradicts  the  statement.  The  editor  must  think  his  readers  are  all 


EXPORTS  OF  INDIAN  CORN. 


fools,  who  have  no  means  of  finding  out  what  goods  sold  for  in  1857.  Potter 
Palmer  sold  calicoes  at  one  shilling  a  yard  in  1857,  and  like  goods  are  now  sell 
ing  at  eight  cents.  We  can  name  hundreds  of  articles,  the  prices  of  which  are 
from  twenty  to  fifty  per  cent,  less  in  currency  than  they  were  in  gold  in  1857. 

The  writer  of  the  above  paragraph  tells  us  that  he  had  charge  of 
the  prints  department  in  Potter  Palmer's  establishment  some  years 
before  the  war,  and  that  he  has  drawn  his  figures  from  personal 
recollection  of  daily  contact  with  the  facts.  It  thus  appears  that 
the  Free  Traders,  in  their  assertions  about  comparative  prices,  have 
put  the  cart  before  the  horse.  The  higher  prices  of  general  manu 
factures  existed  under  partial  Free  Trade,  and  do  not  now  under 
the  policy  of  Protection. 

It  is  very  clear  to  us  that  Western  farmers  received  the  full 
benefit  of  the  very  high  prices  for  agricultural  produce  during  and 
just  after  the  war.  During  the  fiscal  year  1865,  when  the  average 
export  price  of  wheat  was  $1.95.160  per  bushel;  of  wheat  flour 
was  $10.48.155  per  barrel ;  and  of  corn  was  $1.30.803  per  bushel, 
not  one  of  these  prices  represented  a  delusive  and  unsatisfactory 
value,  but  one  that  was  substantial  and  profitable.  When  the  price 
of  gold  was  $2.85,  and  a  paper  dollar  was  worth  very  little  more 
than  thirty-six  cents  in  coin,  it  was  worth  100  cents  in  coin  to  the 
farmer  when  applied  to  the  payment  of  an  old  debt. 

What  has  contemptuously  been  called  the  depreciation  of  our 
currency,  so  far  from  being  an  injury  to  the  agricultural  classes, 
has  been  to  them  a  positive  blessing.  When  the  premium  on  gold 
is  high,  they  receive  higher  currency  prices  for  their  breadstuff's  ; 
and  the  currency  prices  of  other  commodities  being  cheaper  rela 
tively  than  the  currency  prices  of  grain,  the  money  received  by 
farmers  for  the  latter  will  exchange  for  larger  quantities  of 
those  other  commodities  than  when  greenbacks  approach  par  with 
coin.  It  is  folly  to  say  that  farmers  are  victimized  by  such  results 
as  these  ;  for  it  is  folly  to  assert  that  all  prices  are  governed  by  the 
fluctuations  of  the  gold  market.  When  Mr.  McCulloch  was  Comp 
troller  of  the  Currency,  he  said,  in  his  report  dated  Nov.  25,  1864: 
"When  gold  sold  in  Wall  street,  on  the  first  of  July  last,  at  185 
premium,  many  of  the  best  stocks,  as  well  as  productive  real  estate, 
were  no  higher  than  they  have  been  upon  a  coin  basis."  This 
single  proof  is  sufficient  to  establish  the  fact  that  general  prices  do 
not  follow  the  price  of  gold  ;  and  it  is  in  full  concurrence  with  our 


24  EXPORTS  OF  INDIAN  CORN. 

position  that  when  a  high  gold  premium  makes  a  high  export  price  in 
currency  for  grain,  the  farmer's  higher  currency  price  will  pur 
chase  a  larger  quantity  of  other  commodities,  the  prices  of  which 
are  not  affected  in  like  manner. 


EXPORTS  OF  INDIAN  MEAL.  25 


CHAPTER  V. 


EXPORTS    OF    INDIAN    MEAL. 

i 
I 

OUR  exhibit  of  the  exports  of  corn  would  not  be  complete  with 
out  a  like  statement  of  the  exports  of  meal.  In  neither  of  these 
forms  of  the  breadstuff  has  the  quantity  exported  from  the  Pacific 
Coast  at  gold  values  been  sufficiently  large  to  make  any  sensible 
impression  upon  average  prices ;  hence  it  is  hardly  worth  while  to 
give  those  exports  in  detail.-  Omitting  the  fiscal  year  1866,  for 
which  there  are  no  official  statistics  of  exports  by  customs-districts, 
the  corn  exported  from  the  United  States,  on  the  Pacific  side  of 
the  continent,  during  the  period  between  June  30,  1861,  and'July 
i,  1874,  amounted  to  only  7,552  bushels,  valued  at  $7,037,  equa- 
to  an  average  of  $0.93.181  per  bushel;  and  of  Indian  meal,  only 
2,571  barrels,  invoiced  at  $17,539,  equivalent  to  an  average  of 
$6.82.186  per  barrel.  These  figures  furnish  evidence  that  the  coin 
prices  of  commodities  on  the  Pacific  Slope  constitute  no  proper 
standard  by  which  to  measure  the  coin  value  of  the  currency  prices 
in  other  parts  of  the  country ;  for  the  above  gold  prices  of  corn 
and  meal  are  much  higher  than  the  greenback  prices  elsewhere, 
showing  they  result  from  a  combination  of  circumstances  local  in 
influence  and  distinct  in  character. 

Below,  copied  from  the  Commerce  and  Navigation  Reports  of 
the  United  States,  are  the  total  quantity  and  value  of  Indian  meal 
exported  in  each  of  the  last  twenty-six  years,  together  with  the 
average  price  per  barrel. 


26 


'EXPORTS  OF  INDIAN  MEAL. 


THIRTEEN    YEARS     UNDER    PARTIAL 

THIRTEEN  YEARS  UNDER  THE  POLICY 

FREE  TRADE. 

OF  PROTECTION. 

Fiscal 
Years. 

Barrels. 

Values. 

Average 
price 
per  barrel. 

Fiscal 
Years. 

Barrels. 

Values. 

Average 
price 
per  barrel. 

1849  

405,169 

$1,169,625 

$2.88.676 

1862  

253,570 

$778,344 

$3.06.954 

1850.    .. 
1851..    .. 

259,442 
203,622 

760,611 
622,866 

2.93-172 

3.05-893 

1863  
1864..  .  . 

257,948 
262,357 

1,013,272 
1,349,765 

3.92.820 
5.14.476 

1852..    . 

181,105 

574,38o 

3.17.153  !  1865..  .  . 

199,419 

1,489,886 

7-47-II3 

1853..    .. 

212,118 

3.34.660  ;i866..  .  . 

237,275 

1,129,484 

4.76.023 

1854-    -. 
1855..    . 
1856..    . 
1857..    . 

257,403 
267,208 
293,607 
267,504 

1,002,976 
1,237,122 
1,175,688 
957,79* 

3.89.652 
4.62.981 
4.00.429 

3.58.421 

1867..  .  . 
1868..  .  . 
1869..  . 
1870..  .  . 

284,281 
336,508 
309,867 
187,093 

1,555,5.85 
2,068,430 
1,656,273 
935,676 

5.47.200 
6.14.675 
5.34.5" 
5.00.113 

1858..    . 

237,637 

877692        3.60.341; 

1871..  .  . 

212,641            951,830 

4.47.618 

1859-    • 
1860..    . 

258,885 

994,269 
912,075 

3.84.058; 

3.90.261: 

1872..  .  . 
1873..  .  . 

308,840 
403,111 

1,214,999 
1,474,827 

3.93.407 
3.65.861 

1861..  .. 

203,313 

692,003 

3.40.364 

1874..  .  . 

387,807 

1,529,399 

3.94.371 

Totals. 

3,280,722 

$11,687,072 

Totals. 

3,640,7*7 

$17,147,770 

An.  av. 

252,363 

$899,006 

$3.56.235 

An.  av. 

280,055 

$1,319,059 

$4.71.000 

Here  we  find  the  same  general  result  as  in  the  cases  of  wheat,  of 
wheat  flour,  and  of  corn — larger  export  quantities  and  higher  av 
erage  prices  under  the  policy  of  Protection  to  home  industry. 
Are  these  evidences  of  the  spoliation  practiced  upon  Western  far 
mers  through  the  baneful  operation  of  our  present  tariff  system,  as 
is  asserted  by  Free  Traders?  If  so,  what  a  pernicious  influence 
must  be  exerted  upon  agricultural  prosperity  by  increased  prices 
for  breadstuff's  !  The  official  statistics  show,  by  contrasting  two 
consecutive  periods  of  thirteen  years  each,  that  the  export  price  of 
Indian  meal,  on  an  average,  was  $1.14.765  higher  per  barrel,  or 
321  per  cent,  more  under  the  policy  of  Protection,  than  it  was 
under  the  policy  of  partial  Free  Trade.  What  a  calamity  that  was 
to  Western  farmers  !  Just  think  of  it  !  They  were  plundered  by 
having  more  money  put  into  their  pockets.  That  is  very  sad,  indeed  ! 
This  great  wrong  can  be  stopped,  however,  by  returning  to  the 
blessings  of  partial  Free  Trade. 

The  average  export  price  for  the  first  period  of  thirteen  years 
was  $3.56.235  per  barrel.  If  the  quantity  exported  in  the  second 
period  had  obtained  no  higher  rate,  then  the  sum  realized  would 
have  been  only  $12,969,508.20,  or  $4,178,261.80  less  than  what 
was  actually  received.  How  did  that  gain  of  more  than  four  mil 
lion  dollars  operate  to  the  injury  of  farmers  ?  Does  this  large 
increase  of  value  indicate  the  alleged  scheme  and  process  of 
spoliation  in  the  series  of  tariffs  since  1861  ?  Can  the  agricultural 


EXPORTS  OF  INDIAN  MEAL.  2? 


classes  be  robbed  by  a  system  of  custom-house  legislation  under 
which  they  prosper — under  which  they  get  better  prices  for  the 
produce  they  sell,  and  pay  lower  prices  for  the  finished  products 
they  buy? 

A  multitude  of  facts,  of  daily  occurrence,  show  that  the  ten 
dency  of  Protective  tariffs  is  to  cheapen  the  prices  of  manufactured 
articles.  Such  a  fact  is  found  in  the  following  statement,  which 
we  copy  from  a  Philadelphia  paper  of  recent  date : 

Our  enterprising  Philadelphia  saw  and  tool  manufacturers,  Messrs.  Henry 
Disston  &  Sons,  have  a  full-page  advertisement  in  the  London  Ironmonger,  stat 
ing  the  location  of  their  works  and  offices,  and  the  nature  of  their  business,  and 
adding  that  they  have  an  agency  at  Durham,  England,  for  the  sale  of  their  saws, 
tools,  and  sheet  steel. 

Here  we  see  that  Protective  America  is  beginning  to  find  a  market 
for  some  of  her  manufactures  on  the  soil  of  Free  Trade  England. 
That  could  not  be,  if  the  necessary  effect  of  Protective  duties  is  to 
increase  cost  in  production  and  to  enhance  prices.  Some  months 
ago,  the  Sheffield  (England)  Telegraph  stated  that  an  agent  of 
Messrs.  Henry  Disston  &  Sons  had  arrived  in  that  town  with  sam 
ples  of  the  firm's  wares,  and  was  offering  to  fill  an  order  for  any 
article  in  the  lot  at  15  per  cent,  less  than  the  current  prices  charged 
by  Sheffield  manufacturers — an  announcement  which  created  no 
little  stir  and  uneasiness.  In  the  face  of  facts  like  these,  we  are 
told  by  Free  Traders  that  a  reduction  of  the  tariff  would  enable 
the  Sheffield  manufacturers  to  undersell  Messrs.  Henry  Disston  & 
Sons  in  the  United  States,  and  thus  cheapen  to  farmers  the  prices 
of  saws  and  tools.  Meanwhile,  the  American  firm  is  seeking  cus 
tomers  in  the  home  market  of  those  very  rivals  who,  it  is  claimed, 
would  overmaster  competition  in  this  country  were  it  not  for  our 
Protective  tariff.  Now,  we  wish  Free  Traders  to  answer  this  ques 
tion  :  Ho,w  is  it  possible  for  the  Sheffield  producers  to  outdo  the 
Philadelphia  producers  in  cheapening  prices  in  the  American  mar 
ket,  when  those  Philadelphia  producers  are  able  to  outdo  those 
Sheffield  producers  in  cheapening  prices  in  the  English  market? 


OUR  EXPORTS  OF  POTATOES. 


CHAPTER    VI. 

OUR    EXPORTS    OF    POTATOES.  ; 

rT^HE  fact  that  farmers  obtain  better  prices  for  their  produce 
JL  under  the  system  of  Protection  to  home  industry  than  they  do 
under  the  system  of  partial  Free  Trade  finds  additional  confirma 
tion  at  every  succeeding  step  of  inquiry  into  the  subject.  Whether 
we  take  the  cereals,  which  are  cultivated  so  extensively,  and  pro 
duced  in  such  vast  quantities,  or  resort  to  the  minor  crops,  for  ex 
amples,  this  important  and  instructive  fact  is  equally  established 
by  the  investigation.  Let  us  illustrate  the  case  with  potatoes. 
Here  are  the  exports  for  the  last  twenty-six  years,  with  the  average 
price  per  bushel  in  each  year. 


THIRTEEN  YEARS    UNDER  PARTIAL 

THIRTEEN  YEARS    UNDER 

FREE 

TRADE. 

PROTECTION. 

Fiscal 
Years. 

Bushels 
exported. 

Values.      I 

Average 
price  per 
bushel. 

Fiscal 
Years. 

Bushels 
exported. 

Values. 

Average 
price  per 
bushel. 

1849  

109,665 

$83,313 

$3.75-97° 

1862  4I7,I38 

$300,599   i    $0.72.062 

1850  

155,595 

99,333 

.63.841 

1863  517,53°     ' 

413,581            .  79-9*4 

1851  
1852  

106,342 
148,916 

115,121 

.74.584 
.77.306 

1864  
1865  

463,212 
510,344 

473,9" 
724,593 

1.02.310 
1.41.981 

1853  

22"  005 

1  52,569 

.67.537      1866  

47°,  753 

535,446 

1.13.742 

t854 

T  AO    C  7  R 

121,680 

.86.559    :  lg67  '        512,380 

505,875 

.98.730 

1855*  
1856*  
1857*  
1858  
1859  
1860  

225,013 
226,908 
238J722 
242,231 
376,056 
380,372 

203,416 
153.061 
205,616 
205,791 
284,111 
284,673 

,90.402 

•  67-437 
.86.132 
..84  956 
•  75.550 
.74.341 

1868  
1869  

1871'.'.::'.' 
1872  
1873  

378,605 
508,249 
596,968 
553,07° 
621,537 

483,395 
451,435 
412,488 
432,815 
^82,648 
498,29* 

1.27.678 
.88.822 
.69.097 
.78.257 
•77-654 
.96.698 

1861  

4I3,°9I 

285,508 

.69.115 

1874  

497,413 

471,332 

•94-757 

Totals. 

2,989,391 

$2,273,506 

$0.76.053      Totals. 

6,562,505 

$6,186,409 

$0.94.269 

*  The  exports  in  these  years  are  stated  in  barrels  in  the  official  reports  as  follows  :  81,823 
barrels  in  1855,  at  an  average  price  of  $2.48.605  per  barrel ;  82,512  barrels  in  1856,  at  an  average 
price  of  $1.85.502  per  barrel  ;  and  86,808  barrels  in  1857.31  an  average  price  of  $2.36.863  per 
barrel.  For  the  sake  of  uniformity,  we  have  reduced  barrels  to  bushels,  at  the  assumed  rate  of 
eleven  pecks  to  the  barrel. 


Here  we  have,  for  the  Protective  period,  an  increase  of 
per  cent,  in  aggregate  quantity,  of  136  per  cent,  in  aggregate  value, 
and  of  24  per  cent,  in  average  price  per  bushel  of  total,  showing  a 


OUR  EXPORTS  OF  POTATOES.  29 


very  considerable  gain  in  every  respect  over  the  period  of  partial 
Free  Trade.  What  benefit  could  be  derived  by  farmers  from  going 
back  to  the  previous  condition  of  affairs,  under  which  their  rewards 
were  smaller  and  their  sales  less?  If,  as  is  asserted  by  the  oppo 
nents  of  our  Protective  policy,  the  agricultural  classes  have  been 
shamefully  victimized  and  plundered  by  the  series  of  tariffs  since 
1 86 1,  is  it  not  exceedingly  strange  that  these  evils  have  been  ac 
complished  through  adding  to  the  market  value  of  farm  produce, 
by  which  larger  pecuniary  returns  have  been  realized  from  tilling 
the  soil  ?  If  Free  Traders  are  correct  in  their  assertion,  then,  ac 
cording  to  the  above  figures,  we  have  the  wonderful  paradox  of 
farmers  literally  robbed  into  prosperity.  Paradoxical  robbery  of 
that  sort  is  much  more  apt  to  be  accepted  as  a  blessing  than 
as  a  curse.  It  is  very  difficult  to  impress  people  with  the  idea  that 
they  are  oppressed  or  despoiled  bylaws  under  which  they  have  full 
pockets. 

Had  the  6,562,505  bushels  of  potatoes  exported  during  the  thir 
teen  years  of  Protection  obtained  no  higher  average  price  than  the 
$0.76.053  received  for  the  quantity  exported  during  the  thirteen 
years  of  partial  Free  Trade,  then  the  total  amount  realized  would 
have  been  only  $4,990,981.93,  or  $1,195,427.07  less  than  the  sum 
actually  secured.  Now,  how  is  this  very  large  gain  in  value  to  be 
reconciled  with  the  charge  that  Protective  Tariffs  operate  in  such  a 
way  as  to  plunder  the  farmer  of  his  hard  earnings?  According  to 
the  rules  of  common  sense,  a  man  regards  as  highly  beneficial 
and  entirely  satisfactory  those  legislative  influences  under  which 
his  pecuniary  accumulations  are  enlarged  ;  but,  according  to  the 
standard  of  judgment  set  up  by  the  Free  Traders,  such  influences 
are  to  be  considered  as  injurious,  and  to  be  stigmatized  as  a  scheme 
of  spoliation.  As  correctly  and  cogently  might  it  be  said  that 
robust  health  is  a  symptom  of  fatal  disease. 

Another  factor  which  enters  into  the  export  problem  needs  to  be 
noticed.  All  exports  from  the  Pacific  Coast  are  stated  in  gold. 
By  deducting  these  from  the  total  exports  in  each  of  the  years  in 
the  Protective  period,  we  obtain  an  exhibit  of  exports  at  currency 
values,  as  follows  : 


30 


OUR  EXPORTS  OF  POTATOES. 


EXPORTS  OF  POTATOES  AT  CURRENCY  VALUES. 


Fiscal  Years. 

Bushels  ex 
ported. 

Values. 

Average  price 
per  bushel. 

1862 

$284,217 

X863           

490,166 

389,922 

•79-549 

1864 

426,695 

1865         

486,845 

609,092 

1.43.781 

1866 

* 

1867  

472,967 

481,432 

1.01.790 

1868 

347,231 

1.31.680 

1869  

467,606 

426,076 

1870 

60  008 

1871  

509,913 

395  115 

.77.487 

.81.078 

1873  

445,566 

44^,950 

.99.637 

1874 

.99.375 

Totals 

$0.94.667 

These  are  the  figures  in  which  Western  farmers  are  specially  in 
terested  ;  for  their  produce  is  sold  for  paper  money  ;  and,  if  there 
is  any  evidence  in  comparative  statistics,  gathered  and  recorded 
by  Government  itself,  then  there  can  be  no  other  conclusion  than 
that  agricultural  industry  pays  better  and  thrives  more  under  the 
policy  of  Protection  than  it  does  under  the  policy  of  partial  Free 
Trade.  Our  present  tariff  system,  instead  of  plundering  the  farmer, 
as  is  alleged,  really  fills  his  pockets. 

*  Not  separately  stated  in  the  official  report. 


THE  FARMERS'  WOOL  AND  IRON  QUESTIONS.  31 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  FARMERS'  WOOL  AND  IRON  QUESTIONS. 

THE  great  scarecrow  which  Free  Traders  have  set  up  in  the  agri 
cultural  districts  of  the  West,  to  drive  farmers  away  from  the 
policy  of  Protective  tariffs,  is  the  assertion  that  such  policy  forces 
them  to  give  more  of  their  produce  in  exchange  for  less  of  manu 
factured  articles  than  they  did  under  partial  Free  Trade.  They 
are  told,  with  oracular  dogmatism,  that  every  ounce  of  iron  or 
steel  that  is  contained  in  their  plows,  hoes,  axes,  trace-chains, 
nails,  harvesters,  reapers,  and  other  implements  is  heavily  taxed 
by  high  import  duties,  merely  in  order  to  feed  fat  the  insatiate 
greed  of  a  parcel  of  manufacturing  monopolists;  and  that  every 
tiller  of  the  soil  is  their  dupe  and  victim.  Farmers  are  also  told 
that  every  yard  of  woolen  cloth  brought  from  abroad  is  burdened 
with  weighty  entry  charges,  which  largely  enhance  the  cost  to  con 
sumers,  the  advance  in  price  being  added  to  the  domestic  fabrics, 
as  well  as  to  the  foreign,  so  that  wool  is  reduced  in  purchasing 
power,  with  serious  loss  and  damage  to  the  wool-grower. .  We 
shall  prove  that  there  is  not  an  atom  of  truth  in  these  allegations. 
Let  us  see  how  many  pounds  of  wool  have  been  required,  under 
partial  Free  Trade  and  under  Protection,  to  pay  for  a  ton  of  com 
mon  English  bar  iron  in  this  country.  This  contrast  will  supply 
an  infallible  test  for  all  the  points  in  controversy.  As  we  have  no 
quotations  at  Chicago  for  iron  during  the  years  before  the  war,  we 
will  resort  to  the  great  market  of  New  York  City.  The  Finance 
Reports  of  the  United  States  for  the  ^years  1863,  1873,  anci  l874 
contain  monthly  quotations  of  staple  articles  in  that  mart  of  trade 
for  fifty  consecutive  years,  including  the  two  commodities  we  have 
chosen  to  illustrate  our  position.  We  compare  the  six  Free  Trade 
years,  1853-58,  with  the  six  Protective  years,  1869-74,  pitting 


32  THE  FARMERS'  WOOL  AND  IRON  QUESTIONS. 


American  wool  against  common  English  bar  iron.  These  two 
periods  are  peculiarly  apt  for  contrast.  They  each  embody  three 
years  just  before  a  panic,  a  year  with  a  panic,  and  a  year  after  the 
panic.  Moreover,  each  term  embraces  a  nearly  corresponding 
number  of  months  during  which,  from  different  causes,  the  price 
of  iron  was  exceptionally  high.  In  the  Free  Trade  period,  the 
cause  was  inexorable  extortion  on  the  part  of  foreign  manufactu 
rers,  who,  after  having  taken  advantage  of  the  low  tariff  of  1846 
to  prostrate  and  bankrupt  our  iron  industries,  by  the  means  of 
cheaper  and  still  cheaper  prices,  until  competition  had  been  de 
stroyed,  then  took  a  monopoly  control  of  our  markets,  and  ad 
vanced  their  rates  to  exorbitant  figures  on  immense  importations, 
thus  reimbursing  themselves  for  their  losses,  besides  pocketing 
large  profits.  This  was  the  process:  English  bar  iron  sold  at 
$75@8o  per  ton  in  New  York,  in  1846,  under  a  duty  of  $25  per 
ton ;  but,  when  that  duty  was  reduced  to  30  per  cent,  ad  valorem, 
the  price  gradually  fell  to  $33.50(0)41,  in  1851,  from  which  point 
it  rose  to  $62.50(^77.50,  in  1854,  with  an  import  value  in  that 
year,  retained  for  home  consumption,  vastly  larger  than  it  had 
been  in  1846  or  in  1851.  On  the  other  hand,  the  cause  of  the 
very  high  prices  for  English  iron  in  1872  and  1873  was  tne  coa^ 
troubles  in  Great  Britain,  doubling  the  price,  coupled  with  exten 
sively  successful  strikes  by  laborers  for  higher  wages,  thus  greatly 
increasing  cost  of  production.  The  result  appears  very  decidedly 
in  the  declared  values  of  our  imports,  which  are  the  real  market 
values  in  the  foreign  port  of  shipment.  In  the  fiscal  year  1870  we 
imported  from  England  101,642,373  pounds  of  bar  iron,  at  an 
invoice  value  of  $1,808,825,  equal  to  1.77.96  cents  per  pound,  or 
$39.86.2981  per  ton.  In  the  fiscal  year  1872  we  imported  149,- 
503,607  pounds,  at  an  invoice  value  of  $3,166,636,  equal  to  2.11.81 
cents  per  pound,  or  $47.44.5442  per  ton.  In  the  fiscal  year  1873 
we  imported  92,796,789  pounds,  at  an  invoice  value  of  $2,867,850, 
equal  to  3.09.05  cents  per  pound,  or  $69.22:6361  per  ton.  Here 
we  find  an  increase  in  1872  of  19.02  per  cent,  in  invoice  value 
over  what  it  was  in  1870;  of  45.91  per  cent,  in  1873  over  wnat  ^ 
was  in  1872;  and  of  73.66  per  cent,  in  1873  over  what  it  was  in 
1870.  Such  were  the  advances  in  price  made  by  the  manufactu 
rers  to  their  regular  customers  in  the  foreign  market  of  produc 
tion,  before  a  cent  could  be  added  for  transportation,  insurance, 


THE  FARMERS'  WOOL  AND  IRON  QUESTIONS.  33 

and  other  charges,  including  duty  on  importation  into  this  country. 
Surely  no  sane  mind  can  impute  this  great  and  sudden  rise  in  price 
of  iron  in  England  to  the  operation  of  the  American  tariff. 

For  the  purposes  of  our  comparison,  we  have  in  each  instance 
taken  the  highest  price  of  wool  and  of  iron'  during  the  month 
quoted,  as  being  the  price  most  difficult  to  maintain  against  con 
tact  with  depressing  influences,  and  thus  manifesting  the  largest 
purchasing  power  consistent  with  surrounding  circumstances. 


1853- 

1869. 

1854. 

1870. 

K    --  a 

V 

<  ffi 

rd     v 

ffi 

n-nK 

p? 

£  5   '  cr  o  5 

P? 

|S 

v  o  05' 

Sfe 

Sg 

Sf  8  o5'  J.  § 

c  'G- 

g^     S§^ 

Months. 

Ft 

S-II*  nl 
8§"  i- 

ri 

III  *l 

r» 

=rg  8 

0    o    <-f 

P  3-d 

u 

tJ 

^'35 
§§^ 

§   0. 

2.8, 

i  "a. 

!   wl 

O    "*> 

:    3. 

:    t*52.   3  | 

3. 

3* 

0 

K 

3   ° 

:  jjj 

•  °E-5i 

-•^ 

•    $ 

••  *Ls 

•    £- 

S 

W   §      3  0 

y, 

"B.8 

:    — 

i    £2, 

§   0, 

:    o 

i    S-2, 

i  sf 

;  P-S, 

:  o1 

o 

is-  2, 

:    o" 

January  
February  
March  
April  
May 

$0.40 

-44 

•44 

•44 
•  44 
44 
-44 
.44 
.40 
.40 

$70.00 
73.00 
75.00 
67.50 
70.00 
63.00 

57-5° 
60.00 
67.50 
67  5° 
67.50 
65.00 

165 

170 
153 

159 

J43 

153' 

i68j 

162' 

$0.65 

'.6c 
.68 

•65 
.60 
'      .60 
.60 

.60 
.60 

•55 

$90.00 
90.00 
90.00 
95.00 
90.00 
90.00 
90.00 
90.00 
90.00 
90.00 
90.00 
90.00 

138 
138 

15° 
1581 
132  ; 
138 

150 
150 
150 
150 
163 

$0.40 
-38 
-38 
!          .38 
-38 
•35 
•33 
•30 

'28 
.28 
.28 

$70.00 
70.00 

72-50 
75.00 
77-5Q 
72.00 
73-50 
73-50 
73-50 
73-50 
73-50 
65.00 

1751 
i84| 
190, 
197 
203 
206 

222 

245 
262 
262! 

232' 

$0-55 
.60 
.60 
.60 
.60 
.60 
•56 
•56 
•  56 
56 
.56 
-56 

$80.00 
80.00 
80.00 
72.50 
72.50 
72-50 
72.50 

80.00 
80.00 
75.00 
80.00 
80.00 

133 

133 

I2O 
120 
I2O 
I29 
142 
142 

142 
I42 

June  
July 

August  
September... 
October  
November... 
December  ... 

Months. 

1855- 

1871. 

,856. 

1872. 

January  
February...  . 
March  
April  
May  
June  
July  
August  
September... 
October  
November... 
December  ... 

$3.27 
•27 
.27 
.27 
-34 
-34 
•34 
-34 
•34 
•34 
-34 
•34 

$60.00 
60.00 
60.00 
57-50 
60.00 
55.00 
57-50 
60.00 
62.50 
65.00 
65.00 
57-50 

222 
222 

222 
212 

III   ' 
I69 
170 
I83 

llj 

'D.'s6 
56 
•  56 
•56 
.60 
.70 
.70 
.70 

•7° 
.70 
.70 

$72.50 
70.00 
70.00 
70.00 
70.00 
70.00 
72.50 
72.50 
72.50 
72.50 
72.50 
72.50 

129 
125 
125 
125 
125 

116 

103 
103 
103 
103 
103 

$0.34     $6l.OO 

.34     61.00 
-34!    62.50 
.38     65.00 
.38     65.00 
.38     62.50 
.36     62.50 
.36     60.00 
•  34  i    57-oo 
•  34  1    57-0° 
.371    6000 
-37     65.00 

179 
179 
'83 
171 
171 
164 

1  66 
167 
167 
162 

$0.70 
.70 
.70 
.90 
-85 
-85 
.80 
.80 
-65 
.60 
.60 
-75 

$110.00 
1  IO.OO 

115.00 
102.50 

100.00 

12.50 

IO.OO 

05.00 
05.00 
oo.oo 
92.00 

l64 

"3 
117 

137 
i'oi 
1  66 

122 

Months.                    1857.  v 

1873- 

1858. 

1874. 

January  
February.... 
March  
April  
May  
June  

July  
August  
September.. 
October  

$0.37 

.    . 

•  44 
.42 
.42 

•3^ 

•is 

•35 

$57.50 
58.00 
62.00 
62.50 
62.50 
56.00 
52.00 
55-0° 
54-oQ 
53-50 

155 

140 
142 
I48 

133 
136 
144 
142 

$0.75 

•75 

•73 

-55 
•55 
•53 
•53 

53 

i         -55 

$90.00 
90.00 
90.00 
90.00 
90.00 

IOO.OO 
100.00 

95.  eo 

85.00 
85.00 

ISO 
120 

123 

123 

163 

181 
188 
179 
1  60 

$0.32 
.32 
-32 
.32 
-32 
•32 
•32 
•32 
•32 
•32 

$55-0° 
55-00 
55-00 
50.00 
47-5° 
49-5° 
46.50 
46.50 
46.00 
45-00 

171 

£ 

156 
148 

i45 

M3 
140 

$0.55 
.60 
.60 
.60 
.60 
-65 
.60 
.60 
.62 
•63 

$80.00 
78.00 
80.00 

80.00 

78.00 
78.00 
78.00 
78.00 
75-00 
72.00 

145 
I30 

133 
I30 
I2O 
130 
130 
1  2O 
114 

November.. 
December... 

-35 
-35 

53-50 
53-50 

152 
152 

i          S2 

-53 

82.50 
80.00 

158  ;|       .32 
150  '       .32 

46  oo 

47.00 

iji 

•65 
1        .65 

75-oo 
78.00 

120 

34  THE  FARMERS'  WOOL  AND  IRON  QUESTIONS. 


If  any  reader  will  take  the  trouble,  as  we  have  done,  to  check 
off,  without  regard  to  dates,  the  highest  number  of  pounds  of  wool 
for  a  ton  of  iron  under  Protection,  against  the  highest  number 
under  partial  Free  Trade,  he  will  find  in  every  case  that  it  required 
fewer  pounds  to  make  the  purchase  under  Protection.  Recollect,  this 
is  no  restricted  contrast  between  scattered  months  or  years, 
selected  merely  to  make  out  a  case,  but  a  comparison  between  two 
periods,  each  of  six  consecutive  years  divided  into  months,  under 
different  systems  of  tariff.  We  ask,  in  all  candor,  appealing  to 
common  sense,  whether  the  result  of  our  investigation  supports  the 
Protectionists  or  the  Free  Traders?  Can  farmers  believe  they  are 
duped,  victimized,  robbed  by  tariffs  under  which  the  purchasing 
power  of  their  wool  for  bar  iron  has  been  so  largely  increased? 

When  we  confine  the  comparisons  to  sets  of  two  years,  there  is 
a  similar  showing.     In   the  whole   range   of  the  exhibit  for  1853 
there  are  only  two  months  in  which  a  ton  of  iron  could  have  been 
bought   with  fewer  pounds  of  wool  than  in  1869.     In    1870    the 
highest  number  of  pounds  of  wool  required  to  make  the  exchange  was 
less — considerably  less — than  the  lowest  number  needful  in   1854. 
The  same  fact  is  true  in  comparing  1871  with   1855.      ^n  only  three 
months  of  1856  would   nearly  as  few  pounds  of  wool  as  in  1872 
exchange  for  a  ton  of  iron.     The  only  showing  in  the  whole  state 
ment   in  favor  of  partial  Free  Trade  is  in  1857 — the  panic  year — 
when,  for  eight  months  out  of  the  twelve,  the  purchasing  power  of 
wool   was  greater  than  in  1873,  also  a  year  of  financial  revulsion. 
Finally,  comparing  highest  with  highest  purchasing  power,  there 
were  only  two  months  in  1858  when  wool  would  pay  for  more  iron 
than  in  1874.     These   conclusive   statistics  demonstrate  that  the 
Free   Traders  are  wrong,  and  leave  no  peg  to  hang  a  doubt  upon. 
It  will  be  noticed  that  the  prices  of  wool  have  been  much  higher 
under  Protection  than  they  were  under  partial  Free  Trade.     This 
is  due   to  our  policy  of  Protective  tariffs,  which   has  created  an 
active    home    demand   for   the    domestic    product,    that    not    yet 
amounting   to   an   adequate   supply.      During  the  four  fiscal  years 
ending  June   30,   1861,   under  the  low  tariff  of  1857,  we  exported 
4>494>572  pounds  of  wool,  valued  at  $1,194,782  ;  during  the  four 
fiscal    years   ending   June    30,    1875,  we    exported    only   713,278 
pounds,  valued  at  $188,981       We  have  now  a  demand  at  home  for 
the  wool   crop,  and   our  farmers  do  not  need  to  look  abroad  for 


THE  FARMERS'  WOOL  AND  IRON  QUESTIONS. 


35 


purchasers..  To  show  the  sudden  and  vast  growth  of  the  wool 
industry  and  the  woolen  manufacture  in  the  United  States  under 
Protection,  we  have  compiled  from  the  census  reports  the  follow 
ing  tabular  statement  for  three  several  periods. 


Particulars. 

1870. 

1860. 

1850. 

.          ... 

2,891 

1,260 

1.559 

8,366 

3?209 

80,053 

42,728 

27,682 

$98,824,531 

$30,862,654 

$28,118,650 

$26.877,575 

$9,610,254 

wages  p«      ..  .. 

83,608,468 

70,862,829 

y\9                  £ISU      .          *               ' 

$155,405,358 

$61,894,986 

$43,207,545 

v  a  ue  o   p 

22.471,275 

r^lo.  o    ^  eep  . 

60,264,913 

Population  

38,558,37! 

31,443,321 

23,191,876 

These  significant  figures  tell  the  story  of  benefits  conferred  upon 
farmers  by  the  Protective  policy.  What  else  but  the  demand  cre 
ated  by  it  for  domestic  wool  could  have  induced  such  a  heavy  in 
crease  in  the  number  of  sheep?  What  else  could  have  kept  the 
price  of  wool  up  to  such  high  figures  in  the  face  of  such  a  large 
addition  to  the  supply?  See  how  slowly  the  woolen  manufacture 
crept  forward  between  1850  and  1860,  the  number  of  establish 
ments  absolutely  diminishing— that  is,  the  big  fishes  eating  up  the 
little  ones — under  the  Free  Trade  tariffs  of  1846  and  1857.  Then 
observe  the  advance  by  mighty  strides  between  1860  and  1870, 
under  tariff  Protection,  the  progress  having  been  very  much  faster 
than  that  of  population.  Of  the  wool  consumed  by  the  mills  in 
1870,  as  much  as  154,767,095  pounds  had  been  derived  from  vari 
ous  seasons  of  the  domestic  crop. 

Farmers  should  study  these  statistics,  which  bristle  all  over  with 
facts  closely  allied  with  their  interests.  To  cap  all,  staple  woolen 
goods  are  cheaper  than  they  were  before  the  war,  as  the  prices  cur 
rent  will  prove.  Yet  Free  Traders,  with  monstrous  absurdity  and 
dogmatic  assurance,  insist  that  Western  farmers  are  plundered  by 
our  system  of  tariff.  They  never  were  more  prosperous,  and  they 
know  it.  They,  of  all  classes,  were  least  affected  by  the  panic  of 
1873,  because  of  Protection  to  home  industry. 


THE  FARMERS'  SALT  QUESTION. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

THE  FARMERS'  SALT  QUESTION. 

I^HE  iniquity  of  the  tariff  on  salt— the  way  the  duty  on  salt  robs 
all  classes,  particularly  the  farmer — the  bounty  which  the  duty 
extorts  from  every  consumer  of  salt,  merely  in  order  to  enrich  that 
bloated  monopolist,  the  salt  manufacturer— these  have  been  an  un 
failing  resource  for  Free  Trade  orators  and  writers  in  appealing  to 
the  people  against  the  Protective  policy.  So,  in  his  recent  con 
tribution  to  the  September  number  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  David 
A.  Wells  could  not  abstain  from  repeating  the  stale  and  spurious 
argument.  We  quote  from  it  as  follows  : 

For  a  number  of  years  subsequent  to  1860,  Congress,  with  a  view  of  protecting 
the  American  producer,  imposed  such  a  duty  on  foreign  salt  as  to  restrict  the  im 
port  and  at  least  double  the  price  of  this  commodity,  whether  of  foreign  or  do 
mestic  production,  to  the  American  consumer.  The  result  was,  taking  the  aver 
age  price  of  No.  I  spring  wheat  for  the  same  period  in  Chicago,  that  a  farmer  of 
the  West,  desirous  of  buying  salt  in  that  market,  would  have  been  obliged  to  give 
two  bushels  of  wheat  for  a  barrel  of  salt,  which,  without  the  tariff,  he  would  have 
readily  obtained  for  one  bushel. 

These  averments  relate  to  matters  of  fact,  and  the  facts  contra 
dict  Mr.  Wells  point  blank.  It  is  manifest  that  his  statements  are 
made  at  random.  If  the  price  of  salt  has  been  doubled  under 
Protection,  and  a  barrel  of  salt  requires  two  bushels  of  wheat  to 
pay  for  it,  whereas  one  bushel  sufficed  under  partial  Free  Trade,  as 
he  asserts,  then  the  price  of  wheat  must  have  remained  stationary; 
for,  if  the  price  of  wheat  has  advanced,  less  than  two  bushels  of 
wheat  would  purchase  the  barrel  of  salt.  Wheat  having  really  in 
creased  in  price,  the  position  taken  by  Mr.  Wells  must  of  necessity 
be  false.  He  also  insists  that  the  tariff  has  restricted  importations. 
Here  he  is  again  refuted  by  the  facts.  For  the  four  years  ending 
June  30,  1861,  with  15  per  cent,  duty  on  salt,  we  imported  2,632,- 


THE  FARMERS'  SALT  QUESTION.  .          37 


551,880  pounds  of  salt,  at  an  invoice  value  of  $5,006,197  ;  yet,  for 
the  four  years  ending  June  30,  1874,  we  imported  2,963,204,738 
pounds  of  salt,  at  an  invoice  value  of  $6,591,243,  with  Protective 
duties  on  salt.  If  this  is  restriction,  what  does  restriction  mean? 
According  to  the  dictionary,  that  word  signifies  "confinement  with 
in  bounds  ;  "  but,  in  this  case  we  have  instanced,  the  bounds  have 
been  broken  through!  Again,  Mr.  Wells  speaks  of  an  "average 
price  of  No.  i  spring  wheat."  Now,  that  statement  involves  an 
impossibility.  To  obtain  an  average  price,  the  rule  of  arithmetic 
requires  that  the  total  value  shall  be  divided  by  the  aggregate 
quantity.  As  no  such  record  of  values  and  quantities  has  been  pre 
served,  it  is  beyond  the  power  of  man  to  arrive  at  the  average 
price.  When,  therefore,  Mr.  Wells  rests  his  argument  upon  an 
average  price,  he  rests  it  upon  an  impracticable  assumption — upon 
something  that  has  no  ascertainable  foundation.  Such  are  the  the 
oretic  follies  of  the  Free  Trade  system. 

Nevertheless,  we  shall  pile  evidence  upon  evidence  against  Mr. 
Wells.  To  begin  with,  we  quote  from  an  able  article  in  the 
Evening  Journal,  of  Chicago,  July  27: 

Let  us  now  compare  the  actual  facts  with  what  Mr.  Wells  asserts  are  the  facts. 
We  have  not  the  Chicago  prices  at  hand,  but  we  have  a  table  of  comparative 
prices,  compiled  by  the  Milwaukee  Evening  Wisconsin  (a  Free  Trade  paper),  and 
as  the  prices  of  salt  and  wheat  in  Chicago  and  Milwaukee  never  vary  to  any  great 
extent,  these  figures  may  be  accepted  as,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  reliable : 

1860.  1872.  1873.  1875. 

Gold  $1.00  $1.12  $1.10^         $1.11 

No.  I  wheat 80  1.29^  1.20^  1.25 

Salt,  per  barrel 1.90  2.40  1.90  1.40 

In  1860,  while  the  Free  Trade  tariff  of  1857  was  still  in  force,  it  required  two 
and  a  half  bushels  of  No.  I  wheat  to  purchase  a  barrel  of  salt,  instead  of  one 
bushel,  as  Mr.  Wells  would  have  his  readers  believe  This  is  a  very  remarka 
ble  error  of  fact  for  a  man  who  claims  to  be  an  original  investigator,  and  whose 
opinions  are  quoted  as  law  and  gospel  by  the  Free  Trade  fanatics ;  yet  his  lan 
guage  can  bear  no  other  construction  than  that  one  bushel  of  grain  should  have 
theoretically  been  equal  to  one  barrel  of  salt,  whereas,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it 
actually  required  two  and  a  half  bushels  of  wheat  to  buy  a  barrel  of  salt.  On 
the  other  hand,  in  1873,  under  this  tariff,  which  Mr.  Wells  condemns  so  freely, 
our  Western  farmers  were  enabled  to  purchase  a  barrel  of  salt  for  one  and  a  half 
bushels  of  No.  I  wheat,  so  that  there  was  an  actual  saving  of  just  one  bushel 
under  the  tariff,  instead  of  a  loss  of  one  bushel,  as  Mr.  Wells  states. 

But  this  is  not  all.     The  commercial  columns  of  the  same  issue  of  the  Chicago 
Tribtme  which   contained  Mr.  Wells's  great  effort  show  that  the  people  of  the 


THE  FARMERS'  SALT  QUESTION. 


Northwest  can  buy  a  barrel  of  salt  for  1.12  bushels  of  wheat  at  the  present  time, 
in  the  Chicago  market,  under  this  awful  tariff  that  Mr.  Wells  and  his  friends,  the 
disinterested  English  manufacturers,  find  so  much  fault  with.  As  compared 
with  the  Free  Trade  prices  of  1860,  our  farmers  are  able  to  save  1.38  bushels  of 
wheat  on  the  purchase  of  every  barrel  of  salt  used  upon  the  farm.  This  saving, 
according  even  to  Free  Trade  logic,  must  be  credited  to  Protection. 

The  chief  priest  of  the  American  Free  Trade  synagogue  has  not  only  misrep 
resented  the  facts,  but  has  had  the  audacity  completely  to  reverse  the  facts;  or 
else  he  is  perfectly  ignorant  of  the  facts. 

Conclusive  as  this  answer  is,  we  shall  place  it  upon  still 
broader  and  more  impregnable  ground.  Accordingly,  we  com 
pare  the  purchasing  power  of  wheat  for  salt  in  the  years  1872,  1873, 
and  1874,  under  Protection,  with  such  purchasing  power  in  the 
years  1856,  1857,  and  1858,  under  partial  Free  Trade.  The 
contrast  between  these  two  periods  is  peculiarly  apt  and  cogent. 
Each  embraces  a  year  before  a  panic,  a  year  with  a  panic,  and  a 
year  after  the  panic.  We  take  the  prices  of  wheat  and  salt  for  the 
earlier  period  from  the  annual  reviews  of  the  trade  and  commerce 
of  Chicago,  for  the  several  years,  as  published  at  the  time  in  the 
Daily  Press  and  Tribune,  of  this  city,  and  the  prices  for  the  latter 
period  from  the  official  reports  of  the  Chicago  Board  of  Trade. 
In  all  cases  the  highest  price  in  each  month  has  been  used,  because 
the  top  of  the  market  is  always  most  sensitive  to  a  downward 
tendency,  and  thus  represents  the  greatest  purchasing  power  of  the 
commodity  that  can  be  maintained  amid  the  surrounding  circum 
stances.  All  the  prices  were  the  ruling  ones  for  cash. 


1856. 

1872. 

Months. 

cr£ 

IF 

2-t* 

3 

V 

rt> 

Spring  wheat  per 
bushel  

|rf 

r»           3- 

P  <L 
Ifo 

"1     jj 

—  tr 

2,1 

o-JP 

F 

""  3> 
:     3 

:    n> 

:  T) 
1    % 

f 

•jr 

fS 
rs 

|°| 

|      §"0 

11 

US 

January  

$2.37% 

$i-35 

1.7593 

$2.40 

$1.25 

I.Q2QO 

February  

2.51^ 

1.30 

1.9346 

2.  2O 

.26%: 

.7426 

1.05 

2  2O 

.25% 

•  7495 

April  

2.50 

i.  20 

2.0833 

2.15 

•35& 

0836 

May 

2.12\4 

1.14 

1.8640 

2.IO 

.60% 

.3084 

June  .  ... 

2.  OO 

1.06 

1.9434 

2.IO 

•55 

•  3548 

July  ... 

2.OO 

I.OO 

1.85 

.32 

.4015 

August  

2.o6 

I.IO 

1.8727 

2.OO 

:li 

.2422 

September 

2.OO 

.08 

2.IO 

.28% 

.6311 

October 

2.06 

i  08 

.8182 

November.... 

2.06 

.78 

2.25 

.ii# 

.0225 

I.  OS 

.78 

2.^000 

2.40 

.21 

•9835 

THE  FARMERS'  SALT  QUESTION. 


1857. 

1873. 

Months. 

rj 

—  Eh 
3 
JH 

•O 
n 

Spring  wheat  per 
bushel  

Bushels  of  wheat 
for  a  barrel  of 
salt  

gjf 

j? 

•o 
n 

\ 

No.  2_  spring 
wheat  per  bush 
el  

!T     ~>W 

&®s 

"•  "*  p* 

IB   rt. 

r= 

}f 

s,8 

January  
February  ,.  
March 

$i.95 

2.  CO 
2.06 

$0.87 
.90 
.91 

2.2414 

2.2222 
2.2637 

$2.40 
2.40 
2.30 

$.26 
.26^ 

.22% 

1.9048 
1.8972 
1.8737 

April  
May                  

2.06 
1.90 

.88 

1.  10 

2.3409 
I.7273 

2.  25 
2.25 

•25 

•34 

1.8000 
1.6791 

2.00 

1.25 

I.  6OOO 

2.15 

.28^ 

1.6732 

Tulv 

1.27 

2.OO 

•23^ 

1.6194 

1.75 

1.14 

I.535I 

2.OO 

.46 

1.3697 

1.85 

.96 

1.9271 

2.00 

.20^ 

1.6598 

1.85 

•77 

2.4026 

2.OO 

•09^ 

1.8265 

1.90 

.69 

2.7536 

1.90 

.09^ 

1.7352 

December  

2.00 

•54 

3'7°37 

1.90 

.16% 

1.6274 

NOTE.— The  report  from  which  we  quote  does  not  give  any  quotation  for  fine  salt  during  the 
month  of  July,  1857. 


1858. 

1874. 

$  .90 

$0-57 

3.3333 

$  .90 

$1.26^8 

.5005 

.90 

•57 

3-3333 

.90 

1.24 

.5323 

March                       

.90 

.61 

3.1148 

.90 

•23^ 

.5385 

April 

.90 

.62 

3-0645 

.28 

.4844 

May              

•7° 

•  65 

2.6154 

.80 

.27^ 

.4118 

.60 

•  65 

2.4614 

.70 

•23 

.3821 

Tulv 

.68 

2.2794 

.70 

-*1% 

.4468 

•47 

.72 

2.0417 

.70 

.10 

•5455 

September  
October                 

.48     ' 
•55 

.88 
.88 

i.  6818 
1.7614 

.60 
.60 

>993X 
•99^ 

.6040 
.6080 

•5° 

.75 

2.OOOO 

.60 

•92^8 

.7274 

December  

.60 

.70 

2.2857 

.65 

.92% 

.7766 

These  authentic  figures  should  put  Mr.  Wells  to  the  blush  ;  for 
they  strip  off*  the  pompous  disguise  which  has  long  hidden  a  sta 
tistical  blunderer  from  the  public  gaze.  He  asserts  that  salt  under 
Protection  has  doubled  in  price.  Where  is  the  evidence  of  that 
in  the  above  quotations?  He  necessarily  implies  that  the  price  of 
wheat  has  remained  stationary.  What  support  does  this  find  in 
our  tables  ?  He  insists  that  the  barrel  of  salt  which  would  have 
cost  the  farmer  only  one  bushel  of  wheat  under  partial  Free  Trade 
now  costs  him  two  bushels.  This  is  contradicted  point-blank  by 
the  facts.  In  twenty-three  out  of  thirty-six  months,  under  Mr. 
Wells's  pet  tariff  system,  it  'required  two  or  more  bushels,  and  in 
five  of  those  twenty-three  above  three  bushels  of  wheat  to  purchase 
one  barrel  of  salt;  yet,  in  all  the  thirty-six  months  under  Protec 
tion,  there  was  only  one  in  which  so  many  as  two  bushels  of  wheat 


40  THE  FARMERS'  SALT  QUESTION. 


were  required  to  pay  for  a  barrel  of  salt.  Moreover,  in  the  Free 
Trade  period  there  were  only  four  months  in  which  the  stipulated 
buying  could  have  been  accomplished  with  less  than  i^  bushels 
of  wheat ;  but,  in  the  Protective  period,  it  could  have  been  done 
in  twenty-six  months,  or  in  all  except  ten.  These  are  facts,  and 
they  are  facts  which  demolish  the  argument  of  Mr.  Wells,  and 

place  him  in  a  very  awkward  attitude  before  the  people that  of 

attempting  to  obtain  their  convictions  on  false  pretenses.  Our 
comparative  tables  fully  and  triumphantly  vindicate*  our  present 
tariff  system  from  the  aspersions  of  its  enemies,  by  conclusively 
showing  that  the  farmer' s  wheat  will  purchase  more  salt  under  Pro 
tection  than  it  would  under  partial  Free  Trade. 

In  its  issue  of  August  yth,  1875,  the  Chicago  Tribune  quoted 
Saginaw,  Onondaga,  and  Canada  salt,  fine,  at  $1.40  per  barrel, 
with  the  lowest  cash  price  of  No.  i  spring  wheat  at  $1.34  per 
bushel.  On  the  basis  of  these  quotations,  1.0448  bushels,  or 
scarcely  more  than  one  bushel  of  wheat,  would  have  purchased  a 
barrel  of  salt.  The  lowest  cash  price  of  No.  2  spring  wheat,  same 
day,  is  given  at  $1.28^4  per  bushel,  at  which  rate  a  barrel  of  salt 
could  have  been  paid  for  with  1.0895  bushels  of  this  quality.  No 
such  transaction  could  have  taken  place  in  the  Free  Trade  years 
1856,  185 7,  and  1858.  Besides,  at  that  period  the  farmers  did  not, 
as  now,  generally  use  labor-saving  agricultural  implements,  nor  did 
they  have  so  many  railroads  or  so  cheap  transportation.  Making 
due  allowance  for  these  ad  vantages,  Western  wheat  has  fully  doubled 
its  purchasing  power  in  relation  to  salt,  instead  of  decreasing  fifty 
per  cent.,  as  Mr.  Wells  asserts  by  completely  reversing  the  truth. 
After  this  humiliating  disclosure,  the  Free  Traders  should  stop 
their  senseless  clamor  about  the  tariff  on  salt,  and  particularly 
about  its  robbery  of  the  farmers. 


THE  FARMERS'  LUMBER  QUESTION. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE  FARMERS'  LUMBER  QUESTION. 

FREE  Traders,  in  organizing  their  campaign  against  the  tariff, 
do  not  hope,  and  can  not  expect,  to  accomplish  their  intended 
end  by  a  single  sweeping  blow.  This  necessitates  attack  upon  a  few 
particular  interests  at  a  time,  the  choice  naturally  falling  upon  those 
which  touch  human  needs  and  uses  at  most  numerous  points,  such 
as  salt,  iron,  cottons  and  woolens,  lumber,  and  the  like.  It  has 
been  represented  to  the  farmer,  over  and  over  again,  that  he  is  the 
especial  victim  of  Protective  duties,  and  that  those  on  lumber  fall 
upon  him  with  the  pressure  of  a  heavy  yet  unnecessary  burden. 
All  these  allegations  relate  to  matters  of  experience;  hence  the 
issue  which  has  been  raised  can  be  settled  only  by  an  appeal  to  the 
facts.  The  real  question  is  the  purchasing  power  of  farm  produce. 
We  have  shown  that  wheat  buys  about  twice  as  much  salt  under 
Protection  as  it  did  under  partial  Free  Trade.  Let  us  now  see 

how  much  corn — another  great  staple    of   the    West has    been 

required,  under  these  opposite  systems  of  tariff,  to  pay  for  a  thou 
sand  feet  of  lumber. 

Here  we  can  not  properly  compare  the  three  years  1872,  1873, 
and  1874  with  the  three  years  1856,  1857,  and  1858,  as  we  did  in 
the  case  of  salt,  because  the  great  Chicago  fire,  Oct.  9,  1871, 
created  a  phenomenal  demand,  sudden  and  long-continued  in  its 
needs,  for  every  kind  of  saw-mill  product,  at  once  advancing  prices 
to  unprecedented  figures,  maintained  many  months,  and  amount 
ing  to  an  almost  immediate  rise  in  value  of  15.79  to  25  per  cent. 
To  accept  such  exceptional  prices  as  a  standard  for  comparison 
with  other  years,  not  complicated  with  extraordinary  circum 
stances,  would  be  as  fallacious  and  as  absurd  as  to  take  the  price 
of  cotton  in  New  York,  in  1864,  with  a  range  of  69  to  180  cents 


THE  FARMERS'  LUMBER   QUESTION. 


per  pound,  as  a  sample  of  the  common  level  of  quotations.  In 
like  manner  we  are  excluded  from  employing  the  year  1858  in  the 
calculation  ;  for  then  lumber  had  dropped  to  figures  unprecedent- 
edly  low.  The  Daily  Press  and  Tribune ',  of  this  city,  in  its  annual 
review  of  the  trade  and  commerce  of  Chicago  for  that  twelve 
month,  said  : 

The  lumber  trade  during  the  past  year  has  been  very  much  depressed.  The 
heavy  shipments  of  1857,  being  followed  by  a  general  stagnation  of  business, 
owing  to  the  monetary  crisis,  left  us  on  the  1st  of  January  last  with  an  immense 
stock  on  hand,  and  very  little  demand  either  from  the  interior  or  by  the  city.  In 
the  month  of  February,  however,  dealers  saw  the  necessity  of  reducing  the  prices 
of  lumber,  and  from  that  time  up  to  the  close  of  the  year  common  lumber  sold 
freely  at  $6@,$8  per  thousand  feet.  The  manufacturers,  however,  did  not  recover 
from  the  depression,  and  not  more  than  one-third  of  the  amount  sawed  in  1857 
was  turned  out  during  1858.  Nor  indeed  could  they  have  done  so  with  any  ad 
vantage  or  profit  to  themselves,  even  had  they  cut  the  logs;  for,  at  the  prices 
which  ruled  here,  unless  the  mills  were  economically  run,  manufacturers  could 
scarcely  clear  expenses.  As  will  be  seen  from  the  tables  which  follow,  the  re 
ceipts  during  1858  were  186,618,692  feet  less  than  they  were  in  1857. 

Considering  these  peculiar  surroundings  of  the  case,  we  shall 
compare  the  years  1868,  1869  and  1870  with  the  years  1855,  1856 
and  1857,  in  order,  as  far  as  practicable,  to  avoid  exceptional 
elements  of  the  problem  to  be  considered.  In  .some  respects, 
these  two  periods  offer  an  apt  contrast,  since  each  of  them  is  re 
moved  to  an  almost  equal  distance  from  the  beginning  of  a  Pro 
tective  era,  on  one  hand,  and  of  a  Free  Trade  era,  on  the  other; 
with  this  advantage  against  Protection,  that  prices  of  lumber  in 
1857 — the  panic  year — were  very  much  less  than  they  had  been 
during  the  preceding  years. 

The  Annual  Review  of  the  Trade  and  Commerce  of  Chicago 
for  1858,  published  by  the  Daily  Press  and  Tribune,  gives  the 
range  of  cargo  prices  for  lumber,  and  the  highest  and  lowest  prices 
for  corn  on  the  first  day  of  the  month  for  five  years.  From  that 
source  we  have  derived  our  figures  for  the  period  of  partial  Free 
Trade.  The  quotations  for  the  Protective  period  have  been  taken 
from  the  official  reports  of  the  Chicago  Board  of  Trade.  In  each 
instance  we  have  adopted  the  highest  price  as  the  one  most  sensi 
tive  to  the  depressing  touch  of  surrounding  circumstances,  and  as 
manifesting  the  greatest  purchasing  power  that  could  be  main 
tained  during  the  month.  It  should  be  added  that  prices  for  1855, 


THE  FARMERS'  LUMBER  QUESTION. 


43 


1856,  and  1857  represent  the  best  and  costliest  corn  in  the  market, 
while  the  prices  for  1868,  1869,  and  1870  stand  for  No.  2  corn, 
with  the  exception  of  1868,  for  which,  on  the  first  day  of  each 
month,  the  report  gives  quotations  for  No.  i  only.  With  these 
explanations,  we  direct  attention  to  the  comparative  tables  which 
follow. 


April    '  . 

$3.55 

% 

-73 
.72 
.69 
.64 
.72 

$  
15.00 
14.00 

14-30 
15-50 
17.00 
17.00 
16.00 

21.7391 
18.4211 
19.8356 
21.5278 
24.6377 
26.5625 

22.2222 

$o.84i 

is4 

.86 
.98 

I.OO 
1.  12 

.80 

$22.00 
22.50 

18.00 
17-50 
17.00 

17.50 

17.00 

26.1905 

21.1765 
20.3488 
17.3469 
17.5000 
15.6250 
21.2500 

May  

June 

July  

August  . 

September  

October 

November  

Months. 

1856. 

1669. 

April.... 

$0.41 
•37 
•33 
.41 

1 

$  
16.00 
14.00 

14.50 
15.00 
15.00 
16.00 

43.2432 
42.4242 

35.3659 
32.2222 

39-4737 
38.4615 
51.6129 

$3.55 

•55^ 
•59 
.70 
.89 
.88# 

$17.00 

16.00 
16.50 
15-50 
15-50 
16.00 
15-50 
15-50 

30.9091 
28.8288 
27.9492 
22.1429 

I74I57 
18.0179 
21.9858 
23.6641 

May    ..  .    . 

June  

July.... 

August  

September 

October  

November 

•°5/5 

Months. 

1857- 

1870. 

April.... 

$0.37 
.60 
•72^ 
.66 
.68 
.69 
•  50 
.46 

$ 

$3.80 

.87 
•82^ 
.81% 
•84 
.64* 
.65 
•  55       1 

$15.25 
^5.50 
16.50 
16.50 
17.25 
17.00 
17.00 
16.50 

19.0625 
17.8166 
19.9396 
20.1866 

20.5357 
26.4591 
26.1538 
30.0000 

May  

13.00 
14.00 
15.00 
14.00 

12.  OO 

11.00 

21.6667 
19.3103 
22.7273 

20.5882 

22.0000 

June  , 

July.... 

August  . 

September 

October  

November  

NOTE. —There  are  no  quotations  in  the  reports  from  which  we  have  quoted  for  April  in  1855 
and  1856,  nor  for  April  and  November  in  1857  for  lumber.  In  all  cases  the  prices  are  for  run  of 
mill  lumber. 


We  confidently  submit  these  statistics  as  complete  disproof  of  the 
Free  Trade  allegation  that  Western  farmers  are  oppressed,  victim 
ized,  and  robbed  by  the  tariff  on  lumber.  During  the  Free  Trade 
period  the  duty  was  only  15  per  cent,  ad  valorem  ;  during  the  Pro 
tective  period,  and  now,  $2  per  thousand  feet.  Yet  what  do  we  see  ? 


44  THE  FARMERS'  LUMBER  QUESTION. 


For  seven  months  of  the  season  of  1868,  comparing  highest  price 
with  highest  price,  lumber  could  have  been  bought  with  fewer  bush 
els  of  corn  than  during  the  season  of  1855.  In  every  month  of  the 
season  of  1869  such  purchase  required  less  corn  than  it  did  in  1856. 
Only  in  1857 — a  year  of  crisis,  panic,  revulsion,  and  collapse — is 
there  any  showing  in  favor  of  the  Free  Trade  policy.  While  a  heavy 
decline  took  place  in  the  prices  of  lumber  in  that  year,  the  prices  of 
corn  were  maintained  nearly  as  high  as  they  had  been  in  1855.  Had 
the  prices  of  lumber  in  1857  been  just  what  they  were  in  1856,  the 
purchasing  power  of  corn  for  lumber  would  have  been  generally 
less  than  it  was  in  1870.  However,  taking  the  results  just  as  they 
stand,  the  folly  and  delusion  of  the  Free  Trade  assertions  become 
manifest ;  the  more  so  when  we  consider  that,  according  to  the. 
official  reports  of  collectors  of  customs  on  our  northern  frontier, 
the  Canadians,  who  are  the  only  exporters  of  common  timber  and 
lumber  to  the  United  States,  pay  the  duties  out  of  their  own  pockets 
for  the  privilege  of  our  markets,  the  entry  charges  thus  falling  upon 
foreigners,  not  upon  American  consumers,  as  is  so  often  alleged. 
If  any  credit  is  to  be  given  to  the  positive  knowledge  of  experts, 
then  the  testimony  of  the  collectors,  almost  daily  brought  into 
contact  with  the  facts  of  the  case,  should  be  conclusive  against  the 
mere  suppositions  and  theories  of  the  Free  Traders. 

To  complete  our  comparison,  we  turn  to  the  quotations  of  the 
day.  The  Chicago  Tribune  gives  62! cents  per  bushel  as  the  highest 
price  for  No.  2  corn  on  Sept.  2,  1875,  and  $14  as  the  highest  price 
by  the  cargo  for  boards  and  strips.  At  these  rates  22.3108  bushels 
of  corn  would  pay  for  M  feet  of  lumber— figures  much  lower  than 
the  general  run  of  prices  in  1855  and  1856.  Nor  should  it  be  for 
gotten  that  the  farmer  not  only  raises  corn  with  less  cost  to  himself 
per  bushel  than  he  did  in  those  Free  Trade  years,  on  account  of 
much  larger  possession  of  labor-saving  implements  for  the  work  of 
agriculture  ;  and  also  that  he  realizes  for  his  individual  benefit  a 
greater  percentage  than  then  of  the  current  prices  of  his  corn  in 
Chicago,  because  he  has  transportation  both  cheaper  and  more  ex 
tensive.  In  1875,  under  a  Protective  tariff,  fewer  days'  labor, 
either  by  the  farmer,  the  mechanic,  or  the  manual  day  laborer, 
will  purchase  a  thousand  feet  of  lumber.  Such  being  unquestiona 
bly  the  case,  the  charge  that  consumers  are  oppressed  and  robbed 
by  the  duties  on  lumber  becomes  the  veriest  trash  of  nonsense. 


TARIFF  DUTIES    AND  CONSUMERS.  45 


CHAPTER    X. 

TARIFF    DUTIES    AND    CONSUMERS. 

FEW  newspapers  in  the  United  States  have  been  able  to  prop 
agate-so  much  error  about  duties  on  imports  as  the  New 
York  Evening  Post.  This  is  due  mainly  to  its  mode  of  discussing 
the  question.  As  a  rule,  its  editorial  articles  on  the  tariff  embody 
scanty  citations  of  individual  facts,  pertinent  to  the  issue,  and 
illustrative  of  the  argument.  Usually,  the  Post  delights  in  gen 
eral  propositions  which,  for  the  most  part,  contain  only  a  small 
fraction  of  the  total  truth,  yet  which  are  presented  and  reasoned 
on,  not  as  fragmentary  and  incomplete,  but  as  aggregate  and  entire. 
All  the  co-operative  factors  are  assumed  to  be  present  in  the  state 
ment  which  is  taken  as  a  basis  for  deduction  ;  consequently,  every 
progressive  step  of  the  dialectic  method  is  an  additional  movement 
into  the  realms  of  error.  A  specific  example  of  our  meaning  will 
be  found  in  the  following  extract  from  the  Post,  Dec.  26,  1874  : 

Tariff  taxes  do  fall,  must  fall,  as  a  rule,  upon  the  consumers  of  the  taxed 
goods.  It  is  true  that  dealers  sometimes,  in  order  to  tempt  a  brisker  market,  are 
temporarily  willing  to  pay  a  part  of  the  tax  out  of  their  own  profits  ;  but  this  can 
never  be  the  permanent  state  of  things.  Trade  is  always  carried  on  for  the  sake 
of  the  profits  of  it;  these  profits  tend  to  reach  an  average  level;  and  profits  con 
sequently  will  never  steadily  pay  steady  taxes  levied  on  the  goods  by  the  sale  of 
which  the  profits  are  realized.  Such  taxes  are  always  ultimately  thrown  upon 
the  ultimate  consumers  of  the  taxed  goods. 

To  persons  who  have  not  dug  down  to  the  bedrock  of  such 
propositions  and  conclusions,  those  above  are  likely  to  appear  rea 
sonable  or  conclusive.  So  soon,  however,  as  we  test  these  propo 
sitions  by  existing  facts,  or  by  a  long  term  of  experience,  we  im 
mediately  detect  their  fallacy.  For  example,  some  weeks  ago  we 
proved  in  our  columns,  by  the  concurrent  statements  of  four  col 
lectors  of  customs  at  the  leading  offices  where  the  revenues  are 


X 
46  TARIFF  DUTIES  AND  CONSUMERS. 


now  collected  on  the  northern  frontier  of  the  United  States,  that 
"  the  import  duty  is  paid  by  the  Canada  producer  or  manufacturer, 
and  not  by  the  American  consumer  ;">  w<\&  that  "the  same  can  be 
said  in  relation  to  grain,  and  in  fact  of  nearly  all  importations"  of 
Canadian  products  into  this  country.  This  has  been  a  fact  for 
such  a  series  of  years  that  it  has  assumed  the  characteristics  of 
permanency.  Here,  then,  we  have  practice  at  war  with  the  Posf  s 
theory,  which  sinks  to  the  mean  level  of  an  unsupported  assertion. 
Or,  take  the  initial  proposition:  "Tariff  taxes  do  fall,  must 
fall,  as  a  rule,  upon  the  consumers  of  the  taxed  goods."  Let  us 
consider  this  in  relation  to  imports  from  European  countries,  and 
produce  one  of  the  children  of  experience  upon  the  witness-stand. 
"Immediately  before  the  construction  of  the  first  steel  rail  manu 
factory  in  this  country  foreign  makers  charged  $150  per  ton  (equal 
then  to  $225  currency)  for  steel  rails.  As  American  works  were 
built,  foreign  skilled  labor  introduced,  home  labor  instructed,  and 
domestic  irons,  clays,  ganister,  and  spiegel  (after  many  expensive 
trials)  found  to  produce  excellent  rails,  the  price  of  the  foreign 
article  was  gradually  lowered,  until  it  now  (1870)  stands  at  less 
than  $79  per  ton  in  gold,  or  $96.38  currency."  So  said  a  me 
morial  by  railroad  managers  to  Congress  asking  for  an  increase  of 
duty,  in  order  to  protect  American  manufacturers  of  steel  rails 
against  the  crushing-out  process  of  their  foreign  rivals  in  ruinously 
reducing  prices.  Notwithstanding  the  panic  and  consequent  de 
pression  in  railroad  circles,  we  imported  in  fiscal  year  1874  to  the 
amount  of  292,821,945  pounds  of  steel  rails,  or  only  27,261,155 
pounds  less  than  in  fiscal  year  1873,  at  an  aggregate  invoice  value 
of  $9,771,175;  equal  to  $74-75.  g°ld>  Per  ton-  It:  thus  appears 
that  the  competition  for  the  sale  of  steel  rails  in  the  American 
market,  created  by  production  on  our  own  soil,  and  sustained  by 
the  influences  of  tariff  legislation,  has  resulted  in  cheapening  prices 
to  consumers  more  than  50  per  cent.,  measured  by  a  gold  standard 
— a  cheapening  which  covers  the  entire  duty  more  than  twice  told. 
Had  it  not  been  for  the  competition  undertaken  and  continued  by 
our  home  producers,  under  the  fostering  care  of  our  tariff,  foreign 
ers  would  have  maintained  their  monopoly  of  our  market,  and  no 
abatement  from  the  makers'  price  of  $150,  gold,  per  ton,  might 
have  taken  place.  On  this  supposition  our  railroad  companies, 
within  the  four  fiscal  years  ending  June  30,  1874,  saved  an  outlay 


TARIFF  DUTIES  AND  CONSUMERS.  47 

of  $34,009, 435. 78;  for,  during  that  period,  we  imported  401,386 
tons  of  steel  rails,  the  whole  of  which  quantity  was  retained  for 
home  consumption,  at  a  total  invoice  value  of  $26,199,155.42, 
equal  to  an  average  price  of  $65.27,  gold,  per  ton,  showing  a  sav 
ing  in  coin  expenditure  of  $84. 73  per  ton,  or,  in  the  aggregate,  of 
$7,810,280.36  in  gold  more  than  the  entire  foreign  cost  of  all  the 
steel  rails  imported  for  our  own  use  during  the  four  years  specified. 
Even  admitting,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that  the  above  estimate 
involves  an'error  of  fifty  or  even  of  seventy-five  per  cent,  too  much, 
which  can  not  be  the  case,  still  the  result  establishes,  to  a  remark 
able  degree,  the  beneficial  influences  exerted  by  tariff  legislation, 
Protective  in  character,  in  reducing  prices  to  American  consumers. 
It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  the  proposition  of  the  Post  leaves  en 
tirely  out  of  view  some  of  the  essential  elements  of  the  effect  of 
tariff  taxes. 

We  might  adduce  various  other  examples  of  similar  force.  Why, 
we  ask,  are  the  instances  of  the  cheapening  of  prices  under  Pro 
tective  duties  so  very  numerous,  if  they  are  merely  exceptions  to 
a  general  rule?  And  why  is  it  that  instances  of  commodities 
made  dearer  by  Protective  duties — instances  which  should  out 
number  the  others  more  than  a  hundred  to  one — are  not  forth 
coming?  If  they, constitute  the  body  of  the  facts  why  are  they 
not  put  upon  the  witness  stand  and  made  to  testify?  We  will 
answer :  because  they  exist  nowhere  except  upon  paper  ;  because 
they  are  merely  speculative  assumptions,  not  living  realities. 
Were  they  actual  circumstances  they  would  be  offered  in  evidence 
fast  enough. 

When  the  Post  says  that  ''Trade  is  always  carried  on  for  the 
sake  of  the  profits  of  it,"  and  proceeds  to  reason  upon  the  propo 
sition  as  if  it  embodied  all  the  factors  of  the  problem,  that  paper 
misrepresents  the  facts  and  commits  a  grave  error.  •  Let  us  illus 
trate  this  point.  When  farmer  and  miller  are  within  easy  reach  of 
each  other,  they  divide  between  them,  on  some  equitable  plan,  all 
the  flour  made ;  but  when  considerable  distance  is  interposed 
between  the  two,  a  third  person,  the  transporter — in  other  words, 
a  middleman — must  be  employed,  who  takes  a  share  of  the  grain, 
or  the  money  price  of  that  share,  to  compensate  him  for  his  ser 
vices  in  conveying  the  grain  to  the  miller;  and,  again,  a  share  of 
the  flour,  or  the  equivalent  of  that  share,  to  pay  him  for  his  time 


48  TARIFF  DUTIES  AND  CONSUMERS. 

and  trouble  in  carrying  the  flour  to  the  farmer,  leaving  less  to  be 
divided  between  the  man  who  grows  the  grain  and  the  man  who 
converts  it  into  flour.  Ultimately,  however,  the  miller  might 
grind  the  transporter's  share  of  the  grain,  taking  therefrom  his 
customary  toll,  and  thus  might  secure  for  himself  the  same  propor 
tion  of  the  whole  quantity  as  if  the  transporter  had  not  inter 
vened  ;  but  the  farmer  must,  in  any  event,  suffer  a  positive  and 
permanent  loss.  It  is  true,  the  farmer  makes  a  gain  by  obtaining 
the  conversion  of  his  grain  into  flour ;  but,  between  his  gain  and 
that  of  the  miller  and  the  transporter,  theirs  not  being  compli 
cated  with  a  sacrifice,  there  is  a  large  inequality  of  profitable  re 
sult.  Let  this  inequality  be  extended  to  a  great  variety  and  num 
ber  of  exchanges,  covering  the  most  of  his  purchases,  then  his 
impoverishment  would  be  merely  a  question  of  time,  or  else  his 
power  of  accumulation  would  be  so  seriously  crippled  as  to  pre 
vent  any  considerable  or  rapid  improvement  of  his  condition.  It 
thus  appears  that  the  circumstances  of  trade  may  be  such  that  the 
copious  gain  will  fall  always  to  the  share  of  one  of  the  parties  to 
the  transaction,  and  the  scanty  gain  invariably  to  the  share  of  the 
other,  all  the  aggrandizing  tendencies  being  with  the  former,  and 
all  the  depreciating  tendencies  with  the  latter.  .  Consequently, 
when  the  Post  says  that  "  trade  is  always  carried  on  for  the  sake  of 
the  profit  of  it,"  that  paper  states  only  a  small  part  of  the  truth, 
and  leaves  altogether  out  of  view  the  very  important  fact  that 
there  is  a  manner  of  conducting  trade  which  inevitably  results  in 
an  unequal  and  oppressive  distribution  of  profit  among  the  parties 
to  such  trade. 

It  is  this  injurious  kind  of  trade  that  is  advocated  by  the  Post — 
a  trade  that  is  circuitous,  foreign,  abounding  with  middlemen,  and 
making  necessary  a  large  use  of  the  machinery  of  transportation. 
External  commerce,  or  exchanges  between  different  nations,  is  far 
less  important  and  valuable  to  a  country  than  internal  commerce, 
or  exchanges  between  its  own  inhabitants  But  the  Post  considers 
the  foreign  market  the  great  consideration  constantly  to  be  kept 
in  view,  as  if  the  infrequency]of  exchanges  were  preferable  to  their 
frequency,  it  being  unavoidable  that  exchanges  between  parties 
distant  from  each  other  must  be  fewer  than  between  parties  near 
together,  and  that  labor  must  have  less  employment  in  the  former 
case  than  in  the  latter.  The  rapid  circulation  of  commodities 


TARIFF  DUTIES  AND  CONSUMERS. 


constitutes  the  material  prosperity  of  national  life,  feading  directly 
to  mental  development  and  moral  improvement,  and,  as  a  neces 
sary  consequence,  to  a  higher  civilization  ;  moreover,  by  the  ten 
dency  of  example,  promoting  the  forces  of  societary  excellence 
everywhere.  To  carry  into  practice  the  blundering  precepts  of 
the  Post  would  be  to  put  the  country  on  the  road  to  industrial 
ruin. 


50  PRODUCTION  AND  FREE  TRADE. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

PRODUCTION  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

SALEM,  Neb.,  Dec.  29,  1874. 
To  the  Editor  of  the  Inter-  Ocean  : 

Being  a  constant  reader  of  your  paper,  and  seeing  you  are  in  favor  of  a  Pro 
tective  tariff,  I  would  like  more  light  on  this  subject.  I  am  a  farmer.  It  seems 
to  me  to  be  a  plain  fact  that  no  portion  of  our  country  could  be  benefited  by  the 
stopping  of  our  factories,  and  also  plain  that  they  will  not  stop  unless  they  are 
likely  to  invest  their  means  where  it  will  pay  better.  Now,  if  Free  Trade  should 
stop  them,  will  it  pay  better  under  that  regime  to  produce  ?  It  seems  to  me  that 
the  whole  question  turns  upon  this  point :  What  is  the  relative  cost  of  manufac 
turing,  say,  cotton  and  wool,  so  as  to  add  one  hundred  or  any  other  given  per 
cent,  to  the  cost  of  production  ?  The  reason  of  my  selecting  these  two  is  be 
cause  they  are  the  most  profitable  productions  of  the  soil.  Hoping  you  will 
deem  these  two  questions  worthy  of  consideration,  I  remain  yours,  for  the  right, 

GEORGE  WATKINS. 

IF  we  fully  comprehend  our  correspondent,  his  first  proposition 
involves  the  common  Free  Trade  fallacy  that  any  manufacturer 
who  finds  his  business  a  losing  one  can  change  his  investment  to 
Some  other  form  of  production.  In  fact,  he  can  do  so  only  in  ex 
ceptional  cases.  Take  a  woolen  mill,  for  example.  A  capitalist 
puts  money  into  a  building,  into  machinery,  into  raw  material, 
and,  employing  operatives,  makes  cloth.  He  discovers  that  his  fac 
tory  will  not  pay.  How  is  he  to  change  his  investment  ?  Is  he 
likely  to  find  a  purchaser  for  a  losing  business  ?  How  is  he  to 
turn,  without  great  sacrifice,  if  at  all,  to  some  other  kind  of  indus 
try  ?  Perhaps  his  building  might  be  devoted  to  different  purposes ; 
but  what  is  he  to  do  with  his  machinery,  adapted  only  to  convert 
wool  into  cloth?  It  is  manifest  that  the  man  can  not  extricate 
himself  without  more  or  less  loss,  leaving  him  weakened  financially, 
possibly  bankrupt.  If  his  mill  stops  running,  what  is  to  become  of 
his  force  of  working  people,  thrown  out  of  employment  ?  What 


PRODUCTION  AND  FREE  TRADE.  51 

effect  will  the  stoppage  have  upon  farmers  in  his  neighborhood, 
and  particularly  upon  those  from  whom  he  has  been  accus 
tomed  to  derive  his  supply  of  wool  ?  Finally,  will  not  the  mill- 
owner,  after  such  a  disheartening  experience,  feel  averse  to  risking 
what  remains  of  his  capital  in  some  other  branch  of  manufacture  ? 
While,  therefore,  it  is  plain  that  no  portion  of  our  country  could  be 
benefited  by  the  stopping  of  our  factories,  it  is  equally  plain  that  the 
factories  might  by  losses  be  forced  to  stop,  and  that  the  means  of 
the  proprietors,  having  taken  the  form  of  buildings,  machinery  and 
other  fixed  capital,  could  not  be  withdrawn  to  be  invested  where 
it  would  pay  better,  but  would  remain,  for  the  most  part,  idle  and 
profitless.  A  complete  illustration  of  these  conditions  is  to  be 
found  to-day  throughout  the  West  in  the  numerous  flax  mills, 
which  can  not  be  operated  without  loss,  and  which  can  not  be  sold 
at  any  price.  These  unremunerative  flax  mills  are  monuments 
of  the  baleful  influences  of  that  provision  of  the  act  of  June  6, 
1872,  which  removed  all  duty  from  jute  butts,  and  thus  adopted 
the  principle  of  Free  Trade  regarding  that  article.  Does  it  pay  our 
farmers  better  under  that  regime  to  produce  flax  ?  Has  not  almost 
every  flax  grower  experienced  the  blighting  force  of  that  Free  Trade 
legislation  ? 

The  same  class  of  injuries  was  extensively  inflicted  upon  our 
people  through  the  tariff  of  1846,  which  substituted  the  policy  of 
partial  Free  Trade  for  the  policy  of  Protection  to  home  industry. 
That  act,  although  passed  in  July,  did  not  go  into  operation  until 
December.  About  three  and  and  a  half  years  afterward,  or  on 
May  15,  1850,  Samuel  Calvin,  a  representative  in  Congress  from 
Pennsylvania,  made  the  following  undisputed  statement  on  the 
floor  of  the  House  : 

The  coal  mines  of  our  State,  in  which  millions  of  capital  have  been  invested, 
have  been  rendered  unproductive,  unprofitable.  Some  have  been  sold  by  the 
sheriff,  others  abandoned  to  dilapidation  and  ruin.  I  am  informed  that  the  sher 
iff  is  the  only  man  now  making  money  in  the  great  coal  fields  of  Schuylkill 
County;  and  that  the  population  of  that  county  has  been  reduced  aboiit  4,000 
within  the  last  twelve  or  fourteen  months.  A  large  portion  of  our  numerous  iron 
establishments  throughout  the  State,  I  would  say  the  larger  portion  of  them,  have 
been  broken  up,  sold  by  the  sheriff,  or  have  suspended ;  and  the  little  remnant  are 
now  sending  up  their  daily  petitions  to  us  to  save  them  from  the  ruin  that  must 
speedily  overwhelm  them  also. 

On  August  12,  1850,  Joseph  Casey,  another  Representative  from 


52  PRODUCTION  AND  FREE  TRADE. 


Pennsylvania,  made  a  speech  on  the  floor  of  the  House.     The  facts 
stated  in  the  extract  below  have  never  been  contradicted  : 

In  the  year  1846  there  were  employed  in  the  State  three  hundred  furnaces, 
with  a  capital  of  $12,000,000,  producing  annually  up  to  1847,  389,850  tons  of 
pig  metal.  This  was  about  the  time  the  tariff  of  1846  was  enacted  and  was 
about  to  go  into  operation.  In  the  two  years  succeeding  that  period — 1848  and 
1849— the  amount  of  iron  produced  had  fallen  from  nearly  400,000  tons  to  about 
250,000  tons ;  and  at  the  close  of  the  present  year  it  will  have  fallen  down  below 
200,000  tons.  Take  in  connection  with  this  an  additional  fact :  The  whole  his 
tory  of  the  manufacture  of  iron  in  Pennsylvania  shows  that  in  a  period  of  seventy- 
five  years  there  have  been  erected  500  furnaces ;  and  out  of  them  177  failures,  or 
where  they  have  been  closed  and  sold  out  by  the  sheriff.  Out  of  this  177  fail 
ures,  one  hundred  and  twenty-four  of  them  have  occurred  since  the  passage  of  the 
tariff  of  1846.  Again,  out  of  the  three  hundred  blast  furnaces  in  full  operation 
when  the  tariff  of  1846  was  enacted  into  a  law,  one  hundred  and  fifty,  or  fully 
one-half,  had  stopped  several  months  ago,  and  fully  fifty  more  of  those  remaining 
are  preparing  to  go  out  of  blast  zvith  the  end  of  the  present  season. 

It  will  be  remarked  that  all  these  iron  works  were  in  successful  operation,  and 
that  a  profitable  market  existed  under  the  operation  of  the  tariff  of  1842,  and  that, 
so  far  from  any  of  them  going  out  of  blast,  new  ones  were  constantly  springing 
into  existence.  The  business  was  gradually  rising  into  importance,  and  the  con 
sumption  rapidly  increasing.  It  was  affording  constant  and  profitable  employ 
ment  to  the  industrious  and  toiling  laborer.  But  the  protecting  and  fostering 
hand  of  the  Government  is  removed,  and  we  find  in  this  brief  period  the  disas 
trous  change  that  has  occurred. 

Here,  under  an  elaborate  system  of  non-Protective  duties,  such 
as  Free  Traders  consider  desirable,  we  find  the  stoppage  of  a  mul 
titude  of  industries,  with  absolute  loss  of  power  to  transfer  the  in 
vestments  to  any  other  branch  of  manufacture.  Not  only  had  the 
capital  embarked  in  these  coal  mines  and  these  furnaces  become 
unproductive — it  was  crippled,  prostrate,  perishing.  Whom  did  it 
pay  better  to  produce  under  that  regime  ?  Certainly  not  the  far 
mers;  for  they  lost  a  regular  market  for  a  considerable  part  of 
their  annual  surplus,  when  thousands  upon  thousands  of  laborers 
lost  employment  and  wages.  How  could  any  class  of  producers 
be  rendered  more  active  or  prosperous  by  a  scheme  of  legislation 
which  sounded  a  death-knell  in  the  ear  of  industry  and  enterprise? 
What  benefit  could  accrue  to  the  people  at  large  from  an  act  of 
Congress  which  resulted  in  depriving  vast  numbers  of  work,  and 
reduced  the  pay  of  nearly  all  the  rest  ? 

The  real  question  involved  in  the  Protective  policy  is  the  ques 
tion  of  employment  and  wages  ;  it  does  not  turn  upon  the  relative 


PRODUCTION  AND  FREE  TRADE.  53 


cost  of  manufacturing,  as  between  cotton  and  wool,  or  between 
one  and  another  set  of  articles.,  as  supposed  by  our  correspondent. 
The  laboring  classes  are  the  nation.     They  are  the  producers,  and 
they  are,  moreover,  the   greatest  consumers.     Their  expenditure 
makes  the  great  home  market.     When  an  industrious  population 
are  employed,  they  not  only  enrich   the  whole  community  to  the 
extent  to  which  they  themselves  are  enriched,  but  by  the  market 
which   their  prosperity   affords   to    other  industries.      When    the 
laborers  of  Chicago  are  in   full   employment,  what  a  market  they 
must  afford,  not   only   for   the  diversified   products  of  the   farm 
which  can  not  be  raised  in  a  city,  but  even  for  their  own  produc 
tions!  If,  however,  the  people  content  themselves  with  producing 
the  raw  materials  of  the  farm,  the  forest,  and  the  mine,  for  export, 
to  be- exchanged   for   manufactured  articles,  then  we  hire  foreign 
laborers  to  do  the  work  of  manufacturing.     Our  own  laborers,  be 
ing  thus  deprived  of  that  work,  and  the  industry  of  the  country 
consisting  in  the  production  of  raw  materials,  the  only  employ 
ment  open  to  them  is  in  that  kind  of  production.     It  is  manifest, 
in  such  case,  that  there  must  be  a  large  increase  in  the  production 
of  raw  materials,  with  much  greater  competition  for  their  sale  in  a 
common  market,  and  that  a  foreign  one.     Few  exchanges  can  take 
place  among  persons  who   produce  the  same  things,  each  having 
enough  and  a  surplus,  consequently  such  persons  must  look  abroad 
for  purchasers.     The  larger  the  quantity  of  the  surplus  seeking  ex 
port,  the  stronger  will   be   the   competition  for  its  sale,  and  the 
greater  will  be  the  tendency  to  a  reduction  of  prices,  since  prices 
must  go  down  when  the  supply  is  increased  without  increasing  the 
demand.     Such  would  be  the  condition  of  affairs  under  Free  Trade. 
How  can  it  possibly  pay  better  under  that  regime  to  produce  ? 

Every  farmer  should  be  a  Protectionist,  because  the  effect  of  the 
Protective  policy  is  to  increase  the  price  of  everything  the  farmer 
has  to  sell,  and  to  reduce  the  price  of  everything  the  farmer  has  to 
buy.  This  proposition  is  not  only  confirmed  by  experience,  but 
agrees  with  the  well-known  laws  of  demand  and  supply.  The 
effect  of  the  Protective  policy,  it  is  admitted  on  all  hands,  is  to 
build  up  and  increase  the  number  of  manufacturing  establishments, 
and  thereby  to  increase  the  demand  for  the  raw  materials  and 
breadstuffs  produced  by  the  farmer,  and  thereby  increase  (not  di 
minish,  as  Free  Traders  say,)  the  price  of  everything  the  farmer 


54  PRODUCTIOM  AND  FREE  TRADE. 


has  to  sell ;  and,  by  increasing  the  number  of  manufacturing  estab 
lishments,  increase  the  quantity  of  manufactured  goods,  and 
thereby  reduce  (not  increase,  as  Free  Traders  say,)  the  price  of  the 
goods  which  the  farmer  has  to  purchase.  Hence,  by  increasing 
the  demand,  you  increase  the  price  of  everything  the  farmer  has 
to  sell ;  and,  by  augmenting  the  quantity  of  everything  the  farmer 
has  to  purchase,  you  reduce  the  price.  Such  is  the  well-known 
operation  of  the  great  law  of  demand  and  supply,  universal  and  in 
variable  in  its  results.  Besides,  by  increasing  manufactures,  you 
withdraw  a  portion  of  the  labor  employed  in  agriculture  and  employ 
it  in  manufactures,  making  customers  and  consumers  of  those  who 
before  were  rivals  in  the  production  of  agricultural  supplies.  This 
transfer  of  labor  from  the  farm  to  the  factory  has  the  double  effect 
of  diminishing  the  aggregate  amount  of  crop  surplus,  while  aug 
menting  the  demand  for  it,  and  of  increasing  the  tctal  of  manu 
factures,  thus  augmenting  the  supply  and  decreasing  the  price. 

Let  agricultural  and  manufacturing  industry  flourish  side  by  side, 
and  you  have  everywhere  occupation  fit  for  all.  There  is  appro 
priate  employment  for  stolid  strength,  for  manual  skill  and  dex 
terity,  for  inventive  genius,  for  the  active  and  the  sedentary,  for 
childhood  as  well  as  youth  and  mature  age — nay,  even  for  de 
crepitude.  The  framework  of  industry  becomes  compact,  self- 
supporting,  all-embracing,  knit,  morticed,  and  clamped  together. 
Markets  are  at  home  rather  than  abroad.  Cost  of  transportation 
ceases  to  be  a  grinding,  impoverishing  tax.  Prosperity  reigns. 

That  system  of  tariff  is  best  which  most  thoroughly  diversifies 
industry,  and  which  most  fully  supplies  all  classes  of  the  population 
with  regular  employment  and  good  wages.  Such  a  tariff  is  Pro 
tective,  and  the  farmer's  friend.  Free  Trade  is  his  great  enemy. 


BENEFITS  OF  TARIFF  PROTECTION.  55 


CHAPTER     XII. 

BENEFITS    OF    TARIFF     PROTECTION. 

INDEPENDENCE,  Warren  Co.,  Ind.,July  8,  1875. 
To  the  Editor  of  the  Inter-  Ocean  : 

I  see,  by  an  answer  given  in  last  week's  issue,  you  favor  a  Protective  tariff,  and 
claim  that  the  masses  are  benefited  thereby. 

1.  If.  you  please,  show  me  and  many  others  if  the  Western  farmers,  mechanics, 
or  merchants  are  benefited  by  it. 

2.  Does  it  not  give  the  Eastern  capitalist  and  manufacturer  great  advantage  in 
selling  their  goods  at  higher  prices  ? 

3.  Do  not  we,  as  consumers,  eventually  pay  the  duty  on  our  own  as  well  as  for 
eign  goods  ? 

4.  Has  not  Protection  by  high  tariffs  been  the  hue  and  cry  ever  since  the  early 
days   of   Henry  Clay,  and  that   by   the  Eastern  manufacturer ;  and  we,  as   old 
Whigs,  were  dragged  into  the  Protective  belief,  because  the  great  orator  advocated 
that  doctrine  ?  OLD-  FASHIONED  REPUBLICAN. 

A  LL  classes  have  been  benefited  by  our  Protective  system.  Under 
r\  it  the  laborer  has  had  steadier  employment  and  higher  wages, 
conferring  larger  purchasing  power.  Owing  to  this  the  merchant  has 
been  able  to  sell  more  goods,  and  to  realize  a  greater  aggregate  of 
profits.  Such  increase  of  prosperity  among  those  not  engaged  in 
agriculture  has  enabled  them  to  buy  and  consume  a  more  copious 
quantity  of  farm  products,  thus  reducing  the  surplus,  which,  to  ob 
tain  sale,  must  seek  a  foreign  market,  and  helping  to  carry  up  the 
price  by  reducing  the  supply.  More  specifically,  we  may  answer 
in  the  language  of  an  editorial  article  in  the  Chicago  Evening  Jour 
nal,  July  12,  as  follows: 

Before  a  single  cotton-mill  existed  in  the  United  States,  imported  cotton 
cloth,  of  an  inferior  quality,  sold  for  22  cents  a  yard.  When  a  Protective  duty 
of  8  cents  a  yard  was  imposed,  and  cotton-mills  built,  the  competition  between 
the  English  and  American  manufacturers  soon  reduced  the  price  of  cloth  to  7 
cents  a  yard.  So,  too,  before  delaine-mills  were  built,  imported  delaines  sold  at 
50  cents  a  yard,  and  in  1856  the  competition  between  foreign  and  home  manu- 


56  BENEFITS  OF  TARIFF  PROTECTION. 


facturers  had  reduced  the  price  to  25  cents  a  yard,  and  under  the  present  Protec 
tive  tariff  this  competition  between  rival  interests  has  reduced  the  price  of  de 
laines  to  15  cents  a  yard.  In  black  alpacas  the  same  facts  are  apparent.  In 
1857  these  goods  sold  for  from  75  cents  to  $1.25  per  yard.  At  that  time  all  the 
American  manufacturers  imitated  foreign  trade  marks  in  order  to  sell  their  goods. 
The  tariff  of  1861  and  succeeding  years  stimulated  the  manufacture  of  alpaca, 
and  to-day  it  sells  at  from  25  to  45  cents  a  yard,  the  quality  being  fully  equal  to 
the  high-priced  goods  of  1857.-  The  prices  of  cotton  goods,  coarse  woolen  o-oods 
boots  and  shoes,  hats  and  caps,  iron  and  steel  rails,  and  even  bar-iron  and  salt 
are  less  to-day,  in  currency,  than  they  were  in  gold  in  1857,  and  it  is  pretty 
generally  known  that  in  1857  prices  were  exceptionally  low  for  partial  Free 
Trade  eras. 

It  requires  only  that  the  farmer  should  consult  his  memory  to 
know  that  he  sells  Ms  produce  at  higher  prices,  and  buys  his  sup 
plies  more  cheaply  now  than  he  did  previous  to  the  war.  His 
agricultural  implements  are  not  only  less  than  then  in  money  cost, 
but  they  are  of  a  higher  grade  of  usefulness,  are  more  durable,  and 
accomplish  their  work  in  a  more  satisfactory  manner.  We  appeal 
to  the  farmer  whether  he  does  not  now  enjoy  larger  comforts,  have 
greater  conveniences,  realize  higher  profits,  and  see,  generally,  an 
easier  time  than  he  did  previous  to  1861.  If  this  be  so,  has  not 
the  farmer  been  signally  benefited  by  our  system  of  Protective 
tariffs?  Had  the  policy  of  Protection  to  home  industry  been 
hostile  to  the  prosperity  of  the  agricultural  classes,  the  result  must 
have  made  itself  felt  in  the  every-day  life  of  the  farmer.  When  we 
learn  that  he  was  never  so  thrifty  and  comfortably  situated  as  at 
the  present  moment,  we  are  forced  to  conclude  that  the  policy  of 
Protection  has  been,  not  only  harmless  to  his  interests,  but  posi 
tively  advantageous. 

Why  should  Protective  duties  reinforce  the  power  of  manufac 
turers,  East  or  West,  to  demand  high  prices  for  their  products? 
The  necessary  tendency  of  a  Protective  tariff  is  to  increase  the 
number  of  persons  engaged  in  a  particular  branch  of  reproduction. 
This  certainly  means  a  more  powerful  and  energetic  competition 
for  the  sale  of  the  fabrics  made.  Now  we  ask,  in  all  fairness,  does 
an  addition  to  the  persons  who  are  producing  a  certain  product 
operate  to  enlarge,  or  to  reduce,  their  ability  to  compel  the  pay 
ment  of  higher  prices?  When  more  people  are  seeking  to  sell  a 
given  article,  is  the  natural  tendency  of  this  competition  for  sale  to 
increase  or  to  decrease  values?  If  a  manufacturer  has  a  constant 


BENEFITS  OF  TARIFF  PROTECTION.  57 


apprehension 'that  in  the  race  for  custom  he  may  be  undersold  by 
a  rival,  is  he  thereby  encouraged  to  put  his  price  up?  We  put 
these  questions  to  the  common  sense  of  the  reader.  There  seems 
to  be  no  logical  conclusion  other  than  that  a  tariff  policy  which 
leads  to  a  multiplication  of  establishments  in  the  same  line  of 
business  must  inevitably  tend  to  a  more  intense  competition  for 
the  sale  of  the  product,  and,  through  that,  to  a  growing  reduction 
of  prices  until  the  minimum  shall  have  been  reached. 

The  real  cause  of  the  hue  and  cry  raised  over  the  "  enormous  " 
duties  on  steel  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  English  producers  are 
now  compelled,  by  the  exigencies  of  American  competition,  to  pay  a 
considerable  part,  perhaps  all,  of  the  duties  out  of  their  own  pock 
ets  for  the  privilege  of  our  markets.  This  we  proceed  to  demon 
strate.  In  1874  we  imported  for  home  consumption,  8,738,483 
pounds  of  high  grade  steel,  valued  at  ^1,094,222. 32,  the  whole 
quantity  having  been  consigned  to  agents  of  the  European  houses, 
not  sold  to  American  importers.  These  figures  showman  average  in 
voice  value  of  12.522  cents  per  pound.  Duties  to  the  amount  of 
$373,742.35  were  collected  on  that  steel.  This  shows  an  average 
duty  per  pound  of  4.277  cents.  Adding  together  the  average  in 
voice  value  and  the  average  duty,  we  obtain  the  sum  of  16.799 
cents,  gold.  Now,  the  Boston  Journal  of  Commerce,  Jan.  30,  1875, 
quotes  English  tool  steel  at  17^  cents,  gold,  per  pound.  Next, 
subtracting  the  16.799  cents  from  that  price,  we  have  a  remainder 
of  .701  of  a  cent.,  or  scarcely  more  than  y-ioths  of  a  cent  in  coin. 
If  we  allow  reasonable  estimates  for  ocean  transportation,  drayage, 
insurance,  storage  in  the  bonded  warehouses,  office  expenses,  com 
pensation  to  agents,  losses  by  bad  debts,  and  so  on,  the  seven  mills 
must  not  only  be  swallowed  up,  but  several  cents  besides,  leaving 
absolutely  nothing  for  profits.  How  is  this  deficiency  to  be  made 
up — for  it  must  be  derived  from  somewhere — unless  it  is  taken  out 
of  the  pockets  of  the  Sheffield  manufacturers?  Under  all  the  cir 
cumstances,  it  is  not  possible  to  sell  English  tool  steel  in  the  Amer 
ican  market  at  17^  cents,  gold,  per  pound,  except  on  the  assump 
tion  that  the  foreign  producer,  not  the  American  consumer,  pays 
the  duty  in  great  part,  if  not  entirely.  That  is  where  the  shoe 
pinches ;  for  American  tool  steel,  quite  as  good  as  the  English, 
perhaps  better,  can  be  bought  side  by  side  with  the  foreign  article 


58  BENEFITS  OF  TARIFF  PROTECTION. 

in  Boston,  at  15  cents,  currency,  per  pound.     No  wonder  the  duty 
is  a  burden — to  the  Sheffield  manufacturer  ! 

No  error  is  more  common  or  more  unfounded,  in  discussing  the 
tariff  question,  than  the  assumption  made  by  Free  Traders  that  the 
duty  is  added  to  the  price,  not  only  to  the  imported  article  which 
is  dutied,  but  also  to  the  home-made  manufacture  of  like  kind. 
This  assumption  is  contradicted  by  a  multitude  of  facts.  In  the 
first  place,  the  duties  on  very  nearly  all  imports  from  CaDada  into 
the  United  States,  as  the  experienced  collectors  of  customs  on  our 
northern  frontier  have  officially  declared,  are  paid  by  the  Cana 
dians  for  the  privilege  of  sale  in  our  markets.  This  one  fact  dis 
proves  the  position  taken  by  the  advocates  of  an  unrestricted  com 
merce.  Moreover,  we  have  demonstrated  in  these  columns,  beyond 
room  for  doubt,  that  English  manufacturers  of  steel  are  compelled 
to  pay  a  considerable  part,  sometimes  all,  of  the  duty  on  that  arti 
cle  before  they  can  get  it  into  our  markets.  Under  these  circum 
stances,  how  is  it  possible  for  the  duty  to  be  added  to  the  price 
The  present  duty  on  wheat  is  twenty  cents  per  bushel.  Does  any 
farmer  ever  take  that  rate  into  consideration  in  fixing  his  selling 
prices?  Nevertheless,  the  tariff  protects  him,  and  assures  him  a 
higher  quotation  than  he  could  possibly  have  without  the  tariff. 
Once  repeal  that  duty,  then  Canadian  wheat  will  pour  into  New 
England  and  New  York,  and  there  supply  an  annual  consumption 
of  some  32,000,000  bushels,  now  almost  altogether  furnished  from 
the  West.  If  our  farmers  were  forced  every  year  to  throw  that 
additional  quantity  upon  the  foreign  market,  or  forego  sale,  would 
price  tend  up  or  down?  Every  tiller  of  the  soil  who  thinks 
that  the  policy  of  Protection  is  injurious  to  his  interests,  and  re 
pressive  of  his  prosperity,  needs  only  to  try  five  years  or  less  of 
partial  Free  Trade  to  produce  a  permanent  change  of  conviction. 


EFFECTS  OF  PROTECTIVE  DUTIES.  59 


CHAPTER     XIII. 

EFFECTS    OF    PROTECTIVE    DUTIES. 

OUR  attention  has  been  callecl  to  the  following  paragraph  in 
the  Chicago  Times,  of  Nov.  18: 

The  advocates  of  the  Protection  piracy  are  just  now  busily  engaged  in  demon 
strating  that  tariff  duties  do  not  affect  prices.  If  Uncle  Sam  puts  a  duty  on  any 
article,  the  foreigner  forthwith  drops  his  price,  and  his  product  is  offered  in  our 
market  at  the  same  price  as  before.  If  that  is  so,  two  things  must  necessarily  fol 
low  :  First.  Protection  can  not  protect,  and  all  those  worthies  who  spend  their 
time  and  money  in  Washington  every  winter,  trying  to  induce  Congress  to  raise 
the  duties  on  their  products,  are  laboring  under  a  great  delusion  and  spending 
their  substance  in  vain.  Second.  Foreigners  must  give  us  some  of  their  products 
out  and  out.  The  duties  on  many  articles  are  equal  to  or  greater  than  the  for 
eign  prices,  and  if  the  foreigner  reduces  his  prices  to  the  amount  of  the  duties  he 
must  needs  reduce  them  to  zero,  or  a  ruinous  quantity,  and  actually  pay  us  some 
thing  for  taking  his  goods.  Such  are  some  of  the  logical  deductions  from  Protec 
tionist  doctrines. 

The  Times  seems  to  be  incapable  of  stating  fairly  an  opponent's 
position.  Now,  the  best  evidence  men  can  furnish  of  confidence 
in  the  accuracy  of  their  own  belief  consists  in  frankly  and  honestly 
presenting  the  arguments  of  their  opponents.  In  misrepresenting 
our  views,  the  Times  makes  a  virtual  acknowledgment  of  the  weak 
ness  of  its  cause. 

Our  proposition  is  that  the  general  effect  viPiotective  duties  is  to 
cheapen  prices  to  consumers,  not  that  "tariff  duties  do  not  affect 
prices."  Indeed,  in  the  very  next  sentence,  the  Times  admits,  in 
its  blundering  way,  that  such  is  not  our  position,  by  saying  that 
"  if  Uncle  Sam  puts  a  duty  on  any  article,  the  foreigner  forthwith 
drops  his  price,  and  his  product  is  offered  in  our  market  at  the  same 
price  as  before."  The  Times  insists  that  Protection  can  not  pro 
tect,  if  that  be  the  fact.  Fully  to  illustrate  this  point,  we  adopt  a 


80 


EFFECTS  OF  PROTECTIVE  DUTIES. 


statement  made  many  years  ago  by  the  Hon.  Charles  Hudson,  a 
Representative  in  Congress  from  Massachusetts,  as  follows  : 

An  article  now  f fee  from  duty  is  selling  in  our  market  for  $1.20.  The  ele 
ments  which  make  up  this  price  are  these  :  Cost  in  foreign  market,  $i;  cost  of 
importation,  10  cents;  importer's  profits,  10  cents  :  making$i.2O.  Atthis-price 
the  article  can  be  manufactured  and  sold  in  this  country.  Now,  let  one  of  our 
citizens  go  into  the  manufacture  of  this  article,  and  what  will  be  the  result  ? 
Why,  the  foreign  manufacturer,  who  has  heretofore  enjoyed  the  monopoly  of  our 
market,  and  who  is  enjoying  large  profits,  will  immediately  put  the  article  at  90 
cents  to  the  American  importer;  this  being  the  cost  of  the  article.  He  will  wil 
lingly  forego  all  profit  for  the  time  being,  for  the  purpose  of  crushing  the  infant 
establishment  in  this  country;  and  the  importer  will  give  up  one  half  of  his  pro 
fits  rather  than  lose  this  portion  of  his  business.  This  will  reduce  the  price  of 
the  article  to  $1.05.  The  American  manufacturer  finds  the  article  in  the  market 
at  this  reduced  price,  which  is,  in  fact,  less  than  he  can  manufacture  the  article 
for.  He  must,  therefore,  abandon  his  business,  give  up  his  establishment  at 
great  sacrifice,  and  yield  the  market  to  the  foreign  manufacturer,  who,findinghis 
rival  destroyed,  will  immediately  demand  the  old  price,  $i ;  and  the  consumer 
in  this  country  will  be  compelled  to  pay  $I.2O,  or  perhaps  $1.25,  to  make  up  the 
loss  which  the  importer  and  manufacturer  sustained  during  the  period  of  compe 
tition.  This  is  the  result  when  the  article  is  free  of  duty. 

Now  we  will  take  the  same  article  at  the  same  price,  both  in  Europe  and 
America,  with  a  Protective  duty.  A  duty  of  1.5  cents  is  imposed  upon  the  article 
to  encourage  domestic  manufactures.  This,  added  to  the  former  price,  $1.20, 
brings  the  article  up  to  $1.35.  The  foreigner  fears  the  loss  of  the  American  mar 
ket,  and  to  prevent  a  surplus  in  his  own  market,  and  create  a  surplus  here,  he 
will  at  once  put  his  article  at  cost,  90  cents.  The  importer  will  forego  half  of 
his  profits,  and  take  off  5  cents,  which  will  bring  the  article  down  to  $1.20,  the 
very  price  which  it  brought  before  the  duty  was  imposed.  In  the  meantime  the 
American  manufacturer  produces  the  article,  which  he  can  sell  for  the  same 
price.  Here,  then,  the  manufacturer  is  protected,  and  the  consumer  has  no  ad 
ditional  price  to  pay.  The  importation  will  not  be  materially  checked;  and  this, 
with  the  domestic  production,  will  create  a  surplus,  which  will  tend  to  a  reduc 
tion  of  the  price.  A  sharp  competition  will  ensue,  and  necessity,  that  mother  of 
invention,  will  bring  out  improvement  in  machinery;  so  that  the  article  can  be 
procured  at  a  cheap  rate.  The  skill  also,  which  is  acquired,  will  enable  the  man 
ufacturer  to  turn  off  the  article  at  less  expense,  and  so  afford  it  to  the  consumer 
at  a  reduced  price.  Thus  will  discriminating  duties  protect  the  manufacture 
and  cheapen  the  article. 

Such  is  the  process  by  which  "  the  foreign  producer  forthwith 
drops  his  price,  and  his  product  is  offered  in  our  market  at  the 
same  price  as  before;"  and  such  is  the  process  by  which  prices 
are  ultimately  reduced  to  American  consumers,  while  Protection  is 
secured  to  home  industry.  Under  Protective  duties  we  gradually 


EFFECTS  OF  PROTECTIVE  DUTIES.  61 


assume  control  of  our  own  markets,  drive  the  foreigner  out,  and 
supply  domestic  consumers  with  better  articles  at  lower  prices 
than  before. 

Let  us  illustrate  this  fact  by  an  appeal  to  experience.  The  man 
ufacture  of  axes  and  other  edge  tools  was  commenced  at  Hartford, 
Conn.,  in  1826,  by  the  brothers  Collins,  who  were  the  first  to  sup 
ply  the  markets  of  this  country  with  cast-steel  axes,  ready  ground 
for  use.  By  the  tariff  of  1828  a  Protective  duty  of  35  per  cent, 
was  levied  upon  imported  axes.  Under  this  Protection  the  Collins 
Co.  introduced  labor-saving  machinery,  much  of  which  was  in 
vented,  patented,  and  constructed  by  themselves.  Ultimately 
their  axes  altogether  superseded  the  foreign  article,  on  account  of 
superior  quality  and  cheapness.  In  1836,  foreign  and  home-made 
axes  .were  selling  side  by  side,  in  the  American  market,  at  $15  to 
$16  per  dozen,  at  which  time  foreign  producers,  finding  they 
could  make  no  money  at  those  rates,  and  that  our  establishments 
could  not  be  broken  down,  withdrew  from  the  competition,  aban 
doning  the  entire  market  to  our  own  manufacturers.  Then  home 
rivalry  and  improved  methods  continued  the  decline  of  prices. 
Axes  were  selling,  in  1838,  at  $13  to  $15.25  per  dozen;  in  1839, 
at  the  same;  in  1840,  at  $13  to  $14;  in  1841,  at  $12  to  $14;  in 
1842,  at  $n  to  $14;  in  1843,  at  $IJ-  to  $12;  in  l844,  at  $n  to 
$11.50;  in  1845,  at  $IO-5°  to  $11  )  'm  ^46,  at  $10  to  $11  ;  in 
1847,  at  $9-5°  to  $10  5°j  *n  1848,  at  $8  to  $10  ;  and  in  1849,  at 
$8  to  $10.  These  quotations  are  copied  from  the  Finance  Report 
of  the  United  States  for  1849,  and  they  show  a  constant  decline  of 
prices,  even  after  the  pressure  of  foreign  competition  had  been 
withdrawn.  Now  we  are  exporters  of  axes,  and  are  wresting  from 
the  English  one  market  after  another.  Said  the  Sheffield  Tele 
graph,  only  a  few  weeks  ago  :  "The  steel  of  an  American  axe  is  so 
superior  to  that  of  an  imported  axe  that  no  pioneer  who  understands 
his  business  will  ever  carry  any  other  with  him  into  the  wilds." 
Such  are  the  effects  of  Protective  duties. 

It  is  because  of  these  results,  often  repeated,  that  British  cap 
italists  have  employed  their  utmost  energies,  seconded  by  the 
diplomacy  of  England,  to  break  down  and  crush  out  our  rising 
industries  as  so  many  impediments  to  a  monopoly  control  of  the 
American  market.  This  spirit  is  even  now  being  exhibited  toward 
the  crockery  manufacture  in  New  Jersey,  where  labor-saving  ma- 


62  EFFECTS  OF  PROTECTIVE  DUTIES. 

chinery  is  beginning  to  overmaster  the  competition  of  cheap  man 
ual  processes  abroad.  A  foreign  manufacturer,  who  has  been 
largely  engaged  in  supplying  the  American  trade,  is  said  to  have 
expressed  a  determination,  before  he  returned  to  England  last 
summer,  to  "unroof  the  Trenton  potteries  and  destroy  the  ' plant' 
of  capital  there  in  the  potting  business."  A  British  iron  master 
said  to  a  friend  of  ours,  who  was  on  a  business  visit  to  England  in 
1873:  "When  we  get  our  grip  on  the  throat  of  labor  again,  we 
will  knock  the  bottom  out  of  the  Bessemer  works  in  the  States." 
Protective  duties  stand  between  such  menaces  and  their  intended 
fulfillment. 

We  have  never  maintained,,  as  the  Times  intimates,  that  foreign 
producers  always  pay  the  duties,  either  in  whole  or  in  part. 
Sometimes  they  pay  every  cent,  as  the  Canadians  now  do  in  almost 
every  instance;  somecimes,  and  this  is  oftenest  the  case,  they  pay 
part;  an'd  sometimes  the  entire  burden  falls  upon  the  American 
consumer.  These  representations  run  parallel  with  long  experience. 
The  operation  of  the  principle  involved  is  thus  stated  by  John 
Holmes,  of  Maine,  in  a  speech  delivered  by  him  in  the  United 
States  Senate,  in  1832  : 

If  any  one  rule  more  than  another  is  to  be  relied  on,  it  is  this  :  that,  as  soon  as 
Protection  begins  to  operate,  and  in  proportion  to  its  operation,  the  tax  is  re 
flected  back  from  the  consumer  to  the  producer.  Take  the  case  of  bar  iron  in 
the  years  1818,  1826  and  1830,  when  the  tariffs  of  1816,  1824  and  1828  were 
in  full  operation.  I  recur  to  the  price  current  in  Boston,  and  select  for  an  ex 
ample  "Old  Sable."  In  1818  the  duty  was  $9  per  ton,  and  the  price,  including 
the  duty,  $104.  In  1826,  duty,  $18  ;  price,  including  duty,  $100.  In  1830,  duty, 
$22.40;  price,  including  duty,  $96.  Thus,  while  the  duty  has  been  constantly 
increasing,  the  price  of  the  article  taxed  has  been  as  constantly  diminishing.  The 
reason  is  as  manifest  as  the  fact  is  true—the  domestic  article  has  been  increasing 
in  quantity.  Suppose  the  foreign  manufacturer  furnished  three-fourths  of  your 
consumption,  the  greater  quantity  would  command  the  price,  and  this  tax  would 
fall  on  the  consumer.  But  let  the  domestic  product  increase  to  one-half,  the 
competition  between  foreign  and  domestic  producers  will  be  more  equalized,  and 
the  tax  will  be  divided  between  the  producer  and  the  consumer.  Let  the  do 
mestic  product  be  three-fourths,  and  your  own  producer  governs  the  whole 
market,  and  the  foreign  producer  bears  the  tax  or  nearly  so. 

Oar  Protective  system  is  the  only  plan  of  taxation  by  which  for 
eigners,  who  do  not  bear  any  part  of  the  burden  of  supporting  our 
free  institutions,  can  be  made  to  contribute  to  the  revenues  of  our 
Government,  as  an  offset  to  the  privilege  of  sale  in  our  markets. 


PROTECTIVE  TARIFFS  AND  PRICES.  63 


CHAPTER    XIV. 

PROTECTIVE    TARIFFS   AND    PRICES. 

FOR  years  the  Chicago  Tribune  has  discussed  the  tariff  question 
on  the  dogmatic  plan — assertion  without  proof.  Not  long 
ago  that  paper  contained  an  editorial  article  under  the  title  of 
"The  Export  Problem,"  in  which  a  parcel  of  absurd  allegations 
were  presented  as  so  many  established  facts.  Our  cotemporary 
should  have  learned  by  this  time  that  it  is  far  easier  to  make  than 
it  is  to  prove  an  assertion.  For  example  : 

The  most  material  bearing  that  the  American  tariff  has  upon  the  export  of 
American  breadstuffs  is,  that  since  1861  the  American  producer  has  received  in 
exchange  for  his  exports  from  one  quarter  to  one  third  less  in  quantity  in  othei 
commodities,  such  as  iron,  and  cotton,  and  woolen  clothing,  than  he  did  between 
1846  and  1861. 

Here,  as  usual,  we  have  assertion  without  proof.  The  facts  con 
tradict  the  Tribune.  Little  more  than  three  months  ago  a  woolen 
manufacturer  in  Indiana,  whose  business  was  started  in  1854,  made 
the  following  statement  in  our  columns— a  statement  derived  from 
his  personal  experience : 

But  to  show  you  just  how  cheap  you  are  buying  woolen  goods  (cotton  goods 
will  make  nearly  the  same  showing),  I  will  give  a  table  of  prices  in  1860  and 
1874,  simply  for  a  contrast : 

Choice  tub  wool,  well  washed,  sold  in  1860  for $  .25  per  It). 

Average  highest  wages  paid  for  hands  in   1860 1.50  per  day. 

Price  for  Q-OZ. jeans,  wholesale 6operyard. 

Tub  wool,  poorly  washed,  1874,  sold  for 50  per  ft>. 

Average  highest  wages  paid  in  1874 3.00  per  day. 

Price  of  9-oz.  jeans,  wholesale 5Operyard. 

This  exhibit  emphatically  denies  the  assertion  made  so  dogmatic 
ally  by  the  Tribune.  The  wool-grower  obtains  double  the  price,  and 
the  mill  operative  double  the  wages  he  did  in  1860,  and  the  whole 
sale  price  of  the  same  class  and  grade  of  goods  has  declined  16^/3 


64  PROTECTIVE  TARIFFS  AND  PRICES. 

per  cent.  Is  that  an  illustration  of  the  way  in  which  Western 
farmers  are  literally /m-^/ by  our  Protective  system,  and  forced  by 
it  to  accept  one-third  less  in  quantity  of  woolen  cloth  in  exchange 
for  their  produce  than  under  the  policy  of  partial  Free  Trade? 

Take  another  example.  High-grade  English  steel  is  to-day  sell 
ing  in  the  Chicago  market  at  21^  cents  per  pound,  while  the 
American  article  of  equal  quality  is  selling  at  15  cents,  both  cur 
rency,  and  American  manufacturers  are  supplying  from  three-fourths 
to  seven-eighths  of  the  home  demand  with  increasing  patronage, 
and  are  rapidly  crowding  their  foreign  competitors  out  of  this 
country.  Is  that  a  further  illustration  of  the  way  in  which  West 
ern  farmers  are  plundered  by  our  Protective  system,  and  compelled 
by  it  to  take  one-third  or  one-quarter  less  in  pounds  of  steel  in  re 
turn  for  their  breadstuffs  than  was  the  case  under  the  tariffs  of  1846 
and  1857  ? 

Here  is  still  another  example.  Since  the  manufacture  of  porce 
lain  has  been  established  in  the  United  States,  the  price  of  porce 
lain  door-knobs  at  the  factory  has  fallen  from  $12  to  $3  per 
thousand,  and  the  American  article  is  now  crowding  Great  Britain's 
product  out  of  her  colonial  markets,  where  she  has  had  a  monopoly 
of  the  supply.  Is  that  another  illustration  of  the  way  in  which 
Western  farmers  are  robbed  by  our  Protective  system,  and  driven 
to  take  one-third  less  of  porcelain  wares  in  exchange  for  their  grain 
than  would  have  been  the  case  between  1846  and  1861  ? 

Next,  let  us  turn  to  the  phase  of  the  subject  presented  by  the 
following  extract  from  the  Finance  Report  of  the  United  States  for 
l855>  Page  15: 

Let  it  be  considered  that  we  manufacture  all  our  furniture,  all  our  carriages 
wagons,  steam-engines,  machinery  for  our  factories  and  machine  shops,  most  of 
our  leather  and  shoes,  boots,  hats,  door  butts,  and  bolts  of  all  descriptions,  bells 
balances,  buckles,  brads,  wood-saws,  horse-cards,  castors,  curtain-pins,  curtain 
bands,  metal  cocks,  jack-screws,  curry-combs,  coal-hods,  candlesticks,  gas-fittings 
and  burners,  coffee-mills,  caldrons,  heavy  edge-tools,  hay  and  manure-forks,  gim 
lets,  hat  and  coat  wardrobe  hooks,  harrows  of  all  kinds,  hoes,  hollow-ware,  planes, 
plows,  sad-irons,  tailors'  irons,  door-knobs,  furniture -knobs,  brass  kettles,  locks  of 
all  kinds,  iron  latches,  lines,  lanterns,  lamps,  levels,  lead,  cut-nails,  clout  nails, 
pins,  pumps,  punches,  pokers,  sand-paper,  rulers,  iron  and  copper  rivets,  ropes, 
rakes,  oil-stones,  wrought  iron  spikes,  door-springs,  window  springs,  steelyards, 
scales  of  all  descriptions,  steel  and  brass  scales,  trowels  of  all  descriptions, 
spoons  of  all  descriptions,  thermometers,  tacks,  vises  of  all  descriptions,  axes, 
wrenches  of  all  descriptions,  iron,  brass,  and  copper  wire,  with  a  long  list  of 
other  articles,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  like  articles  from  other  countries. 


PROTECTIVE  TARIFFS  AND  PRICES.  65 

Since  that  'day  a  multitude  of  other  products  has  been  added  to 
this  enumeration,  some  of  which  form  a  necessary  part  of  every 
farmer's  ordinary  supplies.  Now,  we  ask,  what  determines  in  our 
markets  the  current  prices  of  manufactures  of  which  we  produce  all 
that  we  consume,  none  being  imported  ?  What,  unless  it  be  cost 
in  production  and  competition  for  sale  ?  The  inevitable  tendency 
of  rivalry  in  business  is  to  reduce  profits  to  a  minimum,  and  to  keep 
them  there.  Even  Free  Trade  writers  admit  that.  Consequently, 
the  ever-recurring,  never-ending  competition  among  our  domestic 
manufacturers  for  the  possession  of  the  same  markets  constitutes  a 
force  constantly  moving  in  the  direction  of  greater  cheapness ;  for 
the  moment  any  one  should  arbitrarily  attempt  to  raise  his  prices, 
his  rivals  would  step  in  with  their  lower  charges  and  take  away  from 
him  his  customers.  In  what  way  can  this  rule  of  effects  be  injurious 
to  Western  farmers? 

If  it  be  answered  that  our  Protective  system  operates  to  increase 
cost  in  production,  and  through  that  to  enhance  prices,  we  ask  how 
such  position  is  to  be  reconciled  with  the  cases  we  have  specified- 
cheaper  woolens,  cheaper  steel,  and  cheaper  door-knobs?  If  so, 
why  do  we  now  annually  export  increasing  quantities  of  many  fin 
ished  products  which  found  no  export  demand  at  all  under  the 
policy  of  partial  Free  Trade?  If  so,  why  did  the  proportion  of 
manufactures  in  our  domestic  exports,  in  1860,  amount  to  13  per 
cent,  under  partial  Free  Trade  ;  yet,  in  1874,  amount  to  19  per 
cent,  under  Protection?  If  so,  why  did  we  export,  during  the  four 
years,  1858-61,  of  iron  and  steel  and  their  manufactures,  to  the 
value  of  only  $21,861,230,  while,  during  the  four  years,  1871-74, 
we  exported,  of  the  same  classes  of  articles,  to  the  far  greater 
value  of  $52,325,398?  If  so,  why  did  we  export,  in  the  four  years 
ended  June  30,  1874,  locomotives  to  the  number  of  247,  and  to 
the  value  of  $3,590,648,  yet  not  any  under  the  tariff  of  1857? 
As  all  these  exports  were  destined  to  markets  in  which  they  en 
countered  and  overmastered  that  foreign  competition  which,  it  is 
said,  could  and  would  undersell  our  manufactures  in  our  home 
markets,  and  thus  force  down  prices,  were  it  not  for  the  restric 
tions  imposed  by  our  Protective  tariffs,  we  wish  to  know  how  our 
producers  are  able  to  vanquish  that  foreign  rivalry  in  foreign  coun 
tries,  away  from  the  shelter  of  those  tariffs? 


PROTECTIVE  TARIFFS  AND  PRICES. 


That  increased  cost  in  production  is  not  something  peculiar  to 
our  Protective  system  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  cost  in  produc 
tion  of  iron  has  largely  augmented,  in  recent  years,  in  Free  Trade 
England,  where  there  is  no  duty  whatever  on  the  imports  of 
iron.  For  example,  we  imported  from  England,  Scotland,  and 
Ireland,  in  1860,  157,602,032  pounds  of  pig  iron,  invoiced  at 
$989,279  in  the  ports  of  departure.  Those  figures  give  an  average 
invoice'  price  of  $14.06  per  ton.  In  1874  we  imported  from  the 
same  places  164,355,980  pounds  of  pig  iron,  invoiced  at  $2,386,726, 
equal  to  an  average  of  $32.53  per  ton.  Here  we  see  that  the  cur 
rent  price  in  the  British  market  has  increased  131^  percent.,  and 
that,  too,  under  a  system  of  entire  Free  Trade  in  iron.  According 
to  the  process  of  reasoning  employed  by  the  Chicago  Tribune,  the 
only  logical  inference  is  that  such  great  increase  in  price  is  wholly 
due  to  England's  Free  Trade  policy.  The  corollary,  by  this  method 
of  drawing  conclusions,  is  that,  as  the  opposite  system  must  pro 
duce  opposite  effects,  the  policy  of  Protection  to  home  industry 
must  diminish  the  prices  of  manufactured  articles,  pig  iron  among 
the  rest.  Thus  is  the  Tribune  entangled  in  the  web  of  its  own 
sophistry. 

We  wish  to  notice  one  more  phase  of  the  subject.  In  the  Pat- 
erson  Daily  Press,  April  14,  1875,  we  ^a(^  tne  interesting  and  in 
structive  statement  which  follows: 

The  Phoenix  Mill,  in  fact,  is  one  of  the  most  wonderful  of  the  many  wonderful 
developments  that  have  attended  the  progress  of  the  silk  industry  in  America, 
which  has  been  so  marvelous  that  we  suppose  nine  out  of  ten  cultivated  Ameri 
cans  even  yet  do  not  know,  and  can  hardly  be  mide  to  believe  without  the  evi 
dence  of  their  own  eyes,  that  silks  as  perfect  in  dye  and  texture  as  are  made  any 
where  in  the  world  are  now  produced  extensively  in  Paterson.  Not  many  per 
sons  out  of  the  trade  know,  either,  that  in  many  branches  the  American  silks 
have  driven  the  foreign  fabrics  out  of  the  market,  and  of  the  latter  scarcely  any 
are  now  imported.  This  is  notably  the  case  with  ribbons,  and  silks  for  ladies' 
kerchiefs,  ties,  bows,  scarfs,  and  trimmings.  One  of  the  reasons  of  this  is 
that  the  American  manufacturers  have  wisely  aimed  at  independence  in  all  things, 
and  do  not  depend  upon  the  old  countries  now  even  for  their  patterns.  The  time 
was  when  the  American  market  only  received  the  "  strippings,"  so  to  speak,  of  the 
foreign  market.  When  London  and  Paris  and  other  European  markets  were 
supplied  with  a  favorite  style  of  goods,  what  was  left  was  sent  to  America,  and 
thus  became  a  stale  thing  by  the  time  it  got  here.  Now  most  of  our  American 
mills — like  the  Messrs.  Tilt — keep  their  own  designers,  cut  their  own  cards  for 
Jacquard  patterns,  and  are  thus  able  to  meet  the  demands  of  the  market  promptly, 
and  to  keep  step  with  fashion  in  all  her  capricious  and  rapid  movements. 


PROTECTIVE  TARIFFS  AND   PRICES.  67 

This  signal 'escape  from  slavish  and  disgraceful  dependence  upon 
foreigners  is  an  outgrowth  of  our  Protective  system,  without  whose 
fostering  encouragement  the  manufacture  of  silks  would  have  had 
no  successful  commencement  in  this  country. 

We  might  take  up  and  expose,  one  after  another,  the  many 
errors  of  statement  and  fallacies  of  reasoning  in  the  Tribune's 
article,  but  that  is  not  necessary.  With  the  above  showing  in 
hand,  how  can  its  utterances  on  the  tariff  question  command  the 
assent  of  intelligent  people,  or  how  can  anything  it  says  on  the 
subject  be  trusted?  The  public  mind  no  longer  endures  with 
patience  anything  like  dictatorial  instruction  from  the  press,  in 
schoolmaster  fashion,  saying,  as  to  a  parcel  of  fledgeling  pupils: 
"Do  you  see  this  effect?  Well,  yonder  is  the  cause."  Nowadays, 
readers  are  satisfied  only  with  severely  logical  processes  and  abun 
dance  of  facts,  so  that  they  may  themselves  trace,  step  by  step, 
the  writer's  argument,  and  determine  for  themselves  its  force  and 
accuracy. 


PROTECTIVE  DUTIES  AND  PRICES. 


CHAPTER     XV. 

PROTECTIVE    DUTIES    AND    PRICES. 

CHICAGO,  111.,  Feb.  n,  1871;. 
To  the  Editor  of  the  Inter-Ocean  : 

A  few  days  since  you  published  an  able  article  on  the  duties  on  tea  and  coffee,  in    ' 
which  you  advocated  a  continuance  of  those  articles  on  the  free  list,  because  that 
policy  would  tend  to  cheapen  them.     How  does  this  tally  with  your  arguments 
that  Protective  duties  tend  to  cheapen  prices  to  the  consumer  ?     Please  tell  us. 

A  BELIEVER  IN  THE  INTER-OCEAN. 

A  DUTY  levied  upon  an  article  not  produced,  and  not  likely  to 
be,  or  which  can  not  be,  in  this  country,  can  not  be  Protective 
in  effect,  because  there  is  no  present  nor  prospective  existence  on 
our  soil  of  the  industry  involved.  Tea  and  coffee  belong  to  that 
category;  hence  duties  thereon  are  not  in  any  sense  Protective  of 
domestic  labor  and  capital.  Such  duties  are  added  to  prices  and 
are  paid  by  consumers.  As  a  general  proposition,  with  very  few 
exceptions,  when  such  duties  are  repealed  the  prices  at  once  recede 
by  just  so  much. 

But  the  case  is  different  where  we  produce  articles  like  those 
imported.  Various  effects  follow,  according  to  the  character  of  the 
surrounding  circumstances.  If  the  duty,  when  diminished,  was  not 
sufficiently  Protective,  the  reduction  is  equivalent  to  a  free  gift  of 
the  amount  to  the  foreign  manufacturer.  A  notable  example  of  this 
took  place  in  1870,  when  the  duty  on  pig  iron  was  reduced  from  $9 
to  $7  per  ton.  The  measure  was  carried  through  Congress  on  the 
plea  that  Consumers  would  get  their  iron  cheaper.  But  while  the 
proposition  was  pending,  and  as  soon  as  it  had  been  ascertained  that 
the  measure  would  certainly  pass  both  houses,  the  British  manufac 
turers  held  a  meeting,  at  which  they  resolved  to  put  up  the  price  of 
pig  iron  $2  per  ton,  or  exactly  the  sum  proposed  to  be  taken  off 


PROTECTIVE  DUTIES  AND  PRICES. 


the  duty.  We  find  conclusive  evidences  of  this  movement  in  the 
statistics  of  imports  officially  published  by  our  Government  These 
evidences  we  present  in  the  shape  of  the  average  invoice  prices  per 
ton,  by  months  calculated  from  the  import  entries  as  given  in  the 
serial  reports  of  the  Bureau  of  Statistics,  the  ton  being  the  cus 
tom  house  one  of  2,240  pounds,  as  follows: 


Months. 

i869. 

1870. 

Months. 

1870. 

1871. 

July 

$17  52.1 

$18.05.4 

January  

$15.61.5 

August  

15.95.9 

17.39.6 

February  

15.32.3 

15.73.0 

T4  94-5 

18.28.7 

March  

18.53.7 

October 

April 

16.95.8 

17.79.6 

May...  . 

17.  6=;.  9 

17.56,5 

18.16.7 

The  tariff  bill  became  a  law  July  14,  1870,  and  the  resolution  of 
the  foreign  producers  was  adopted  and  carried  into  effect  during  the 
discussion  in  Congress.  Now,  in  April,  1870,  we  imported  at  an 
average  of  $15.74.6  per  ton  ;  next  month  the  price  suddenly  ad 
vanced  to  $17.65.9 — an  increase  of  $1.91.3,  succeeded  in  June  by  a 
further  rise  of  50.8  cents.  The  general  advance  of  $2  per  ton  was 
maintained  for  seven  successive  months,  when  the  'strength  of 
American  competition  induced  a  fluctuating  concession.  Decem 
ber,  1870,  was  the  last  month  under  the  $9  duty,  and  the  average 
foreign  price  for  that  month  was  $16.70.2.  In  January,  1871 — the 
first  month  under  the  $7  duty — the  average  was  $16.91.3,  and  in 
June  following,  $17.73.7.  Here  we  see  no  sudden  decline  of  price, 
conforming  to  the  reduction  of  duty,  such  as  we  pointed  out  in 
the  cases  of  tea  and  coffee. 

By  the  act  of  June  6,  1872,  taking  effect  Aug.  i,  the  duty  on  pig 
ron  was  further  reduced  to  $6.30  per  ton.  This  was  very  inoppor 
tune  and  exceedingly  foolish  ;  for  the  $9  duty  had  been  only  mod 
erately  Protective,  and  the  additional  lowering  of  the  tariff  was  made 
in  the  face  of  rapidly  advancing  prices  abroad.  England,  the  chief 
source  of  our  foreign  supply,  had  begun  to  feel  severely  the  pressure 
of  the  coal  deficiency  and  of  the  labor  strikes,  forcing  a  steady  in 
crease  of  cost  in  production — a  fact  made  manifest  by  reference  to 
the  invoice  prices.  January,  1872,  the  average  was  $18.77.4;  Feb 
ruary,  $20.75.6  ;  March,  $22.33.5  ;  APril>  $23-°3-5  ;  Ma7>  $24-73-9'> 
June,  $26.69.9;  July,  $26.77.4;  August,  $29.26.2;  September, 
$31.71.9;  October,  $33-39;  November,  $33.44.3;  December, 


70  PROTECTIVE  DUTIES  AND  PRICES. 

$35.90.6.  Under  such  circumstances,  the  seventy  cents  taken  off 
the  duty  was  a  pure  contribution  out  of  the  Treasury  for  the  benefit 
of  the  foreign  manufacturers.  The  reduction  had  no  manner  of 
effect  upon  prices ;  but  the  example  exhibits  the  blundering  ignor 
ance  which  Congress  sometimes  applies  to  tariff  legislation.  Had 
the  duty  on  pig  iron  been  fixed  at  $12  per  ton  in  i86i,and  main 
tained  at  those  figures,  with  corresponding  rates  on  the  metal  in  its 
higher  forms,  our  iron  industries  would  not  be  in  their  present  half 
collapsed  state,  and  thousands  upon  thousands  of  laborers,  who 
to-day  are  compulsorily  idle,  would  not  have  been  without  employ  • 
ment. 

The  tariff  on.  steel  was  far  more  protective  than  that  on  pig  iron, 
and  there  we  find  the  cheapening  effects  of  Protective  duties.  In  the 
Boston  Journal  of  Commerce,  which  is  the  organ  of  the  Sheffield 
interest,  English  tool  steel  was  quoted,  January  30,  at  17^  cents, 
gold,  while  American  tool  steel  was  quoted  at  15  cents,  currency, 
per  pound.  On  that  day  the  lowest  price  of  gold  was  113.  Re 
ducing  15  cents  in  paper  money  to  its  equivalent  in  coin  at  that 
rate,  we  obtain  13.275  cents  as  the  result.  The  average  invoice 
price  of  the  highest  grades  of. steel  imported  into  this  country  in 
the  fiscal  year  1874  was  12^  cents,  gold.  Here  we  see,  reckoning 
in  specie,  that  American  tool  steel  undersells  the  English  article 
by  4.225  cents  per  pound,  and  is  placed  on  our  markets  at  merely 
a  fraction  of  a  cent  higher  than  the  average  value  charged  in  Eng 
land,  by  the  Sheffield  manufacturers,  in  the  sworn  invoices  of  im 
ports  into  the  United  States. 

Within  a  week  past  the  Chicago  Tribune  has  repeatedly  asserted 
that  the  duty  is  not  only  added  to  the  price  of  the  imported  article, 
but  also  to  the  price  of  all  of  the  home-made.  If  that  wild  allega 
tion  is  true,  why  do  not  the  American  manufacturers  of  steel  demand 
17^  cents,  gold,  or  its  equivalent  in  currency?  Their  tool  steel 
is  quite  as  good  as  the  English,  and,  for  several  purposes,  far 
superior.  Throughout  the  oil  regions  of  Pennsylvania  not  a  pound 
of  foreign  steel  is  used  in  boring  wells;  and  there  the  resulting 
cost  of  breaking  a  drill  is  so  considerable,  sometimes  involving 
the  abandonment  of  the  well  itself,  that  price  is  nothing  as  com 
pared  with  quality;  so  that  the  universal  use  of  American  steel  in 
that  broad  area  attests  its  supreme  excellence.  Then  why  do  not 
our  producers  charge  as  much  per  pound  as  their  English  rivals? 


PROTECTIVE  DUTIES  AND  PRICES.  71 


It  is  because  of  constant  competition  among  themselves  to  hold 
and  to  gain  customers.  If  one  of  our  manufacturers  should  arbi 
trarily  undertake  to  raise  his  price,  the  rest  would  step  in  and  take 
away  from  him  his  markets. 

Briefly  stated,  the  general  effect  of  Protective  duties  is  to  arouse 
the  activities  of  production  and  to  provide  work  and  wages  for 
labor.  When  we  buy  abroad  an  article  which  might  have  been 
manufactured  at  home,  we  take  away  from  our  own  mechanics  to 
bestow  upon  foreigners  the  employment  and  pay  for  services  in 
volved  in  the  fabrication  of  that  article.  If  this  plan  of  purchase  is 
carried  on  extensively,  the  result  is  that  thousands  of  our  own  peo 
ple  are  deprived  of  opportunities  to  earn  a  livelihood  in  the  arts  of 
reproduction.  The  circle  of  occupations  being  thus  contracted, 
there  .ensues  a  more  energetic  competition  within  that  narrowed 
area  for  the  sale  of  services,  with  the  necessary  consequence  of  di 
minishing  wages  and  the  laborer's  purchasing  power.  Now,  it  is 
the  ability  of  the  great  masses  of  the  people  to  buy  that  creates 
universal  prosperity.  It  is  the  expenditure  of  their  earnings  that 
causes  the  rapid  circulation  of  commodities — the  thrift  of  manu 
facturing  establishments,  the  enterprise  of  merchants,  transporta 
tion  by  rail  and  water,  the  growth  of  cities,  the  rise  in  the  value  of 
real  estate,  and  the  whole  series  of  movements  involved  in  material 
advancement. 


72  WHO  PAYS  THE  DUTY? 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

WHO  PAYS  THE     DUTY?  -  THE  PROPOSED  CANADIAN  RECIPROCITY 
TREATY  CONSIDERED. 


rT^HE  Canadians,  it  is  said,  sell  us  little  of  their  wheat,  and  buy 
-L  largely  of  ours.  Then  what  causes  the  great  anxiety  to  have  our 
tariff  taken  off  the  importation  of  wheat  ?  Our  wheat  and  flour 
are  admitted  free  into  Canada.  The  abolition  of  our  duties  on  the 
imports  from  Canada  would  not  interfere  with  Canadian  importa 
tions  of  grain  from  the  United  States.  We  have  no  export  duty 
on  our  cereals,  as  Canada  has  on  certain  kinds  of  lumber,  to 
be  repealed  by  a  reciprocity  treaty,  thus  cheapening  the 
invoice  price.  Now,  if  Canadian  wheat  and  flour  find  small 
sales  here,  while  ours  obtain  large  sales  there,  why  should 
such  an  ardent  desire  be  manifested  to  have  our  duties  on 
those  articles  abolished?  We  will  answer.  It  is  because  the 
Canadians  pay  the  duties  out  of  their  own  pockets  for  the  privi 
lege  of  competing  with  our  Western  farmers  in  their  markets,  and 
thus  are  forced  unwillingly  to  contribute  to  the  support  of  our 
Government.  Nor  are  we  dealing  in  mere  assertions.  On  this 
poial  the  Collector  of  Customs  at  Plattsburg  wrote,  under  date  of 
June  8,  1868: 

I  submit  the  following  statement  as  an  illustration  applicable  very  generally  to 
all  importations  made  into  this  district.  The  past  spring  large  quantities  of  po 
tatoes  have  been  imported  into  this  district,  and  the  duty  of  25  cents  per  bushel, 
gold,  paid  by  the  Canadian  seller  or  exporter,  as  the  sale  has  generally  been  per 
fected  on  the  United  States  side  of  the  boundary  line,  duties  paid.  The  Ameri 
can  speculator  buying  at  such  prices  as  to  successfully  compete  with  sellers  in 
the  Boston  market,  does  the  consumer  of  the  imported  potatoes  pay  the  duty  to 
the  United  States  when  he  purchases  the  potatoes  at  the  same  price  that  another 
pays  for  the  American  product?  If  the  Canadian  can  not  export  his  goods  at  a 
profit,  or  the  speculator  can  not  buy  in  the  foreign  market  and  pay  the  duty  at  a 


WHO  PAYS  THE  DUTY?  73 


price  that  he  can  sell  at  in  the  American  market  at  a  profit,  he  does  not  pur 
chase.  The  same  can  be  said  in  relation  to  grain,  and  in  fact  of  nearly  all  im 
portations  into  this  district. 

The  Collector  at  Cleveland,  Ohio,  wrote,  under  date  of  October 
20,  1868,  as  follows: 

The  chief  articles  of  importation  at  this  port  are  lumber  and  barley.  The 
lumber  market  here  is  entirely  controlled  by  the  Saginaw  market,  and  Canadian 
markets  do  not  in  the  least  influence  us.  The  Canada  market,  to  a  great  extent, 
is  controlled  by  American  markets,  and  the  result  is  that  the  Canadian  producer 
has  to  conform  his  prices  to  our  market  figures  here;  this  virtually  makes  the 
Canadian  pay  the  ditties  on  foreign  merchandise  imported  here,  as  he  is  compelled 
to  sell  his  goods  so  as  to  enable  the  importer  to  pay  the  duties,  and  still  not  over 
shoot  the  American  market.  As  the  demand  in  Canada  is  not  equal  to  the  pro 
duction,  the  producer  is  compelled  to  look  to  a  foreign  market  for  sale  of  his 
merchandise,  and  for  this  reason  he  must  necessarily  regulate  his  prices  by  that 
market  to  sell.  The  purchaser  in  buying  always  makes  allowance  for  the  duties, 
and  the  Canadian  in  his  sales  deducts  the  amount,  and  thus  in  reality  pays 
duty  himself. 

The  Collector  at  Oswego,  N.  Y.,  has  this  to  say,  under  date  of 
July  23,  1868: 

The  effect  of  the  abrogation  of  the  reciprocity  treaty,  in  my  opinion,  has  been 
the  addition  of  several  millions  of  dollars  to  the  United  States  revenue  at  the  ex 
pense  of  our  Canadian  friends. 

There  never  appeared  to  me  to  be  any  true  reciprocity  in  it,  but  rather  the 
payment  of  a  very  large  sum  to  them  for  something  that  was  of  very  little  benefit 
to  us.  As  it  now  is,  the  import  duty  is  paid  by  the  Canada  producer  or  manufac 
turer,  and  not  by  the  American  consumer.  Any  reduction  in  the  rate  of  duties  on 
importations  from  Canada  would  benefit  them  just  as  much,  and  would  not  lower 
the  market  value  here. 

The  Collector  at  Buffalo,  N.  Y.,  makes  the  following  statement, 
under  date  of  Dec.  18,  1868: 

The  termination  of  the  treaty  of  reciprocity  between  the  United  States  and 
•the  Canadian  Provinces,  and  the  subsequent  imposition  of  duties  under  the  tariff 
enactments  on  articles  of  importation,  has  been  a  source  of  large  revenue  to  the 
United  States  Government,  the  burden  of  which  has  been  borne  by  the  foreign 
producer  or  manufacturer;  and  any  abatement  or  reduction  of  duties  would,  of 
course,  redound  to  the  advantage  of  such  producer  or  manufacturer,  and  would 
not  tend  to  reduce  the  value  of  the  articles  imported  into  this  market. 

These  are  the  concurrent  opinions  of  four  collectors  at  the  lead 
ing  offices  where  the  revenues  are  now  collected  on  the  northern 
frontier.  They  are  the  statements  of  men  who  are  brought  into 
daily  contact  with  the  realities  of  the  case.  All  these  eye-wit- 


74 


WHO  PAYS  THE  DUTY  ? 


nesses  to  the  facts  coincide  in  their  testimony,  and  can  not  be  mis 
taken.  If  experience  is  any  test  of  knowledge,  the  Canadians 
pay  the  duties  on  imports  from  Canada  into  the  United  States. 
Now,  what  is  proposed  by  the  so-called  reciprocity  treaty? 
Why,  to  abolish  the  duties,  and  thus  to  transfer  their  burdens  from 
the  shoulders  of  Canadian  farmers  to  the  shoulders  of  American 
farmers,  the  great  majority  of  whom  are  Western  farmers,  by  rein 
forcing  and  strengthening  the  former,  to  the  extent  of  the  tariff 
amounts  they  have  been  paying  out  of  their  own  pockets  in  their 
competition  with  the  latter  for  the  sale  of  grain  in  our  markets. 
If  Canadian  farmers  can  afford  to  pay  a  tax  of  20  cents,  gold, 
equal  now  to  22  cents  currency,  on  every  bushel  of  wheat  they 
export  to  the  United  States,  then,  were  the  duty  abolished,  they 
could  add  the  22  cents  to  their  prices  and  sell  just  as  many  bushels 
on  our  soil  as  they  do  at  present.  Consequently,  the  reciprocity 
treaty  would  add  22  cents  per  bushel  to  the' prices  they  now  re 
ceive,  and  give  that  average  sum  to  them  as  a  free  gift  at  the  ex 
pense  of  our  national  revenues,  the  deficit  having  to  be  made  up 
by  imposing  additional  taxes  upon  other  objects  of  taxation.  But  if 
Canadian  farmers  should  conclude  to  overwhelm  their  Western  com 
petitors,  then  they  could  employ  their  gain  of  22  cents  per  bushel 
in  cutting  down  and  overmastering  the  prices  of  Western  wheat. 
In  every  such  contest  they  would  have  an  advantage  of  22  cents 
per  bushel  more  than  they  have  now.  Even  under  the  tariff  as 
it  is,  they  sent  into  the  State  of  New  York  alone  no  less  than 
5,649,798  bushels  in  the  five  years  ended  June  30,  1874.  The 
Chicago  Tribune  has  the  folly  to  declare  that  this  would  not  be  in 
jurious  to  the  West,  but  a  positive  benefit. 

Not  long  ago  the  Ontario  Reformer,  a  representative  journal  of 
the  Dominion,  in  discussing  the  question,  "  Do  consumers  pay 
duty?"  used  the  following  very  decisive  language : 

The  crop  of  wheat  in  the  United  States  is  officially  estimated  at  240,000,000  of 
bushels.  We,  as  a  Dominion,  imported  more  wheat  and  flour  than  we  exported 
in  1872,  as  per  our  government  official  returns.  It  is,  therefore,  very  evident 
that  we  could  not  influence  in  the  least  degree  the  market  price  of  wheat  in  the 
United  States,  and  that  if  we  send  our  wheat  there  we  lose  the  duty.  The  propor 
tion  of  our  surphis  of  horses,  cattle,  sheep,  and  wool  to  the  amount  they  consume 
is  so  very  small  that  it  is  equally  plain  thatjwe  can  not  influence  the  price  in  their 
market,  and  that  we  lose  the  duty.  The  Americans  consumed  last  year  nearly 
40,000,000  bushels  of  barley,  of  which  we  gave  about  one-tentb.  If  one-tenth 


WHO  PAYS  THE  DUTY?  75 


can  control  the  market  price,  then  we  can  dictate  the  price  of  barley  in  the  United 
States,  and  compel  the  consumer  to  pay  the  duty.  We  think  that  our  farmers 
lose  the  duty  on  barley,  or  at  least  the  greater  part  of  it.  The  American  people 
north  of  the  Ohio  consume  not  less  than  8,000,000,000  feet  of  pine  lumber  per 
annum,  of  which  we  gave  them  not  to  exceed  700,000,000  in  any  year,  or  about 
one-eleventh.  The  city  of  Chicago  alone  annually  receives  more  lumber  than 
we  export  to  all  countries.  We  supply  a  large  proportion  of  the  peas  consumed 
in  the  United  States,  and  we  think  that  the  consumer  of  them  pays  the  duty,  but 
*his  is  the  only  natural  product,  whether  from  the  farm,  forest,  mine,  or  sea,  which 
we  export  to  the  United  States  in  such  quantities  as  will  enable  tts  to  compel  the 
consumer  to  pay  the  duty. 

Here  the  Canadian  newspaper  fully  coincides  in  its  statements 
with  the  statements  of  the  four  collectors.  That  print  would  not 
have  dared  to  express  such  views  among  a  people  aware  of  the  true 
state  of  the  facts  had  the  views  been  false.  Its  position,  however, 
is  fortified  by  a  broad  general  principle,  to  wit:  "The  man  who 
must  go  to  market  is  always  compelled  to  pay  the  cost  of  getting  there, 
let  it  take  what  form  it  may,  whether  of  freight,  insurance,  or 
charges  at  the  custom  house." 

We  will  add  the  testimony  of  W.  Martin  Jones,  United 
States  Consul  at  Clifton,  who  wrote  to  the  Treasury  Department 
at  Washington,  under  the  date  of  Dec.  28,  1866,  as  follows: 

The  amount  of  exports,  with  the  exception  of  lumber,  from  the  Provinces  to 
the  United  States,  can  have  little  effect  upon  the  markets  in  the  latter  country,  and 
the  result  is  that  THE  DUTY  PALD  ON  SUCEI  EXPORTS  IS  BORNE 
WHOLLY  BY  THE  PRODUCERS,  who,  in  receiving  the  benefits  of  the 
markets  of  the  country,  are  thereby  compelled  to  bear  a  portion  of  the  burden  con 
tributing  to  the  support  of  its  institutions. 

In  this  way  the  people  of  the  Dominion  annually  contribute  out 
of  their  own  pockets  from  eight  to  ten  millions  of  dollars  toward 
defraying  our  national  expenses.  The  Chicago  Times  talks  as  if 
this  payment  of  part  of  our  taxes  by  the  Canadians  were  a  great 
outrage  and  oppression  upon  American  citizens,  who  should  be 
allowed  themselves  to  shoulder  the  burden  of  taxation. 


76  OUR  MANUFACTURES  GOING  ABROAD. 


CHAPTER     XVII. 

OUR    MANUFACTURES    GOING    ABROAD. 

OUR  Protective  policy  has  been  so  long  and  so  comprehensively 
maintained,  that  we  are  beginning  to  reap  some  signal  advan 
tages  which  are  merely  the  harbingers  of  what  is  to  come,  unless 
Congress  should  be  so  foolish  as  to  stop  the  effect  by  discontinuing 
the  cause.  Only  a  few  weeks  ago  the  very  significant  paragraph 
which  follows  appeared  in  a  newspaper  published  in  Sheffield, 
England  : 

We  have  been'favored  by  a  Sheffield  merchant  with  an  inspection  of  a  number  of 
saws  made  by  Henry  Disston,  which  have  been  sent  here  as  samples.  From  what 
we  have  seen,  we  think  it  very  desirable  that  specimens  of  American  workman 
ship  of  this  high  class  should  be  placed  in  the  Museum  at  Weston  Park,  in  order 
that  workmen  in  the  saw  and  edge  tool  trades  may  see  with  their  own  eyes  and 
handle  with  their  own  hands  such  very  tangible  and  instructing  facts  in  steel. 
We  have  written  over  and  over  again,  in  order  to  present  as  vividly  as  was  within 
our  power,  THE  DANGER  THAT  SHEFFIELD  WORKMEN  HAVE  TO 
FACE  FROM  THE  COMPETITION  OF  OUR  NOVELTY-LOVING  AND 
ACUTE  COUSINS  OF  THE  NEW  WORLD;  and  a  few  cases  of  American 
manufacture,  if  even  temporarily  placed  on  view,  would  probably  serve  to  satisfy 
even  the  workmen  of  the  saw  trade  that  the  policy  of  dislike  to  innovation  and 
obstruction  to  changes  involving  improvements  in  production  has  been  a  most 
serious  mistake. 

While  these  admissions  are  very  strong,  they  omit  the  very 
important  fact  that  those  saws  made  by  Henry  Disston  &  Sons- 
part  of  the  Pennsylvania  manufacturers  whom  the  Times  reviles — 
are  offered  for  sale  in  the  Sheffield  market,  England,  at  15  per 
cent,  less  than  the  prices  current  there  for  the  same  class  of  steel 
goods.  This  competition  at  their  very  doors  has  filled  the  Shef 
field  manufacturers  with  consternation.  Even  the  announcement 
of  the  intended  consignment  created  a  great  stir  in  manufactur 
ing  circles.  The  October  (1874)  number  of  The  British  Trade 
Journal 'thus  heralded  the  coming  event  in  its  "  Sheffield  report": 


OUR  MANUFACTURES  GOING  ABROAD.  77 

It  is  certainly  a  fact,  and  by  no  means  a  cheering  one,  that  the  orders  from 
America  for  Sheffield  goods  are  much  lighter  this  season  than  they  have  ever 
been.  American  makers  of  files,  saws,  and  tools  are  beginning  to  make  their 
competition  keenly  felt.  "  Harry  Disston,"  of  Philadelphia,  is  again  to  the  fore. 
He  is  said  to  be  bent  on  teaching  Sheffield  saw  makers  rather  a  rough  lesson. 
Not  content  with  taking  a  good  deal  of  American  trade,  he  is  now  carrying  the 
fire  into  the  enemy's  camp.  We  are  told  that  his  brother-in-law  is  on  his  way 
to  England  with  a  magnificent  set  of  saw  and  tool  samples,  "  resolved  to  wrest 
the  home  trade"  from  our  townsmen.  "  Harry"  employs  1,000  men,  all  non- 
unionists,  and  uses  most  novel  and  excellent  machinery,  by  which  it  is  claimed 
he  can  make  saws  AS  GOOD  as  Messrs.  Spear  &  Jackson's,  and  VERY  MUCH 
CHEAPER.  Sheffield  saw-makers  will  wait  to  see  these  famous  samples  with 
some  curiosity.  There  is  no  doubt,  however,  that  saws  have  long  ceased  to  be  a 
specialty  of  the  Sheffield  trade  which  defies  competition.  The  Sheffield  manu 
facturer  is  being  roughly  jostled  in  nearly  every  market  of  the  world.  At  the 
same  time,  the  end  of  the  Sheffield  saw  trade  is  not  yet  at  hand,  despite  that 
terrible  Harry  Disston,  of  Philadelphia. 

This  bold  invasion  of  the  British  home  market  by  American 
competition  is  only  the  image  of  what  has  been  going  on,  step  by 
step,  in  other  foreign  countries  for  some  years.  In  the  early  part 
of  1871  the  London  Times  editorially  expressed  the  following 
admissions,  which  are  exceedingly  candid,  pointed,  significant, 
and  impressive  : 

At  this  moment  Birmingham  is  losing  its  old  markets.  A  few  years  ago  it  used 
to  supply  the  United  States  largely  with  edge  tools,  farm  implements,  and  varicms 
smaller  wares.  It  docs  so  no  longer,  nor  is  the  cause  to  be  sought  merely  in  the- 
American  tariff.  It  is  found  that  the  manufacturers  of  America  actually  super, 
seded  us,  not  only  in  their  own  but  in  foreign  markets  and  in  our  own  colonies, 
and  the  Birmingham  Chamber  has  the  sagacity  to  discover,  and  the  courage  to 
declare,  that  this  is  owing  to  the  superiority  of  American  goods. 

High  as  are  the  wages  of  an  English  artisan,  those  of  an  American  artisan  are 
higher  still,  and  yet  the  manufacturers  of  the  United  States  can  import  iron  and 
steel  from  this  country  at  a  heavy  duty,  work  up  the  metal  by  highly-paid  labor, 
and  beat  us  out  of  the  market,  after  all,  with  the  manufactured  articles.  How  is 
that  to  be  explained  ? 

The  Americans  succeed  in  supplanting  us  by  novelty  of  construction  and  ex 
cellency  of  make.  They  do  not  attempt  to  undersell  us  in  the  mere  matter  of  price. 
Our  goods  may  still  be  the  cheapest,  but  they  are  no  longer  the  best,  and  in  the 
country  where  an  axe,  for  instance,  is  an  indispensable  instrument,  the  best  article 
is  the  cheapest,  whatever  it  may  cost.  Settlers  and  emigrants  soon  find  this  out, 
and  they  have  found  it  out  to  the  prejudice  of  Birmingham  trade. 

It  thus  appears  that  the  greater  intelligence  and  skill  of  Ameri 
can  workmen,  coupled  with  the  greater  inventive  genius  of  our 


78  OUR  MANUFACTURES  GOING  ABROAD. 


people,  have  been  stimulated  into  the  utmost  activity  under  the 
fostering  influences  of  our  Protective  system,  so  that  we  are 
wresting  away  from  our  formidable  rival,  England,  one  market 
after  another,  and  are  even  threatening  her  supremacy  upon  her 
own  soil. 

We  are  falsely  told  that  "  with  a  strictly  revenue  tariff''  our 
manufacturers  would  be  enabled  "to  obtain  control  of  nearly 
every  market  in  the  Western  Hemisphere."  Such  is  not  the  voice 
of  experience.  Every  attempt  we  have  made  to  develop  our  in 
dustries  under  that  kind  of  tariff  has  ended  in  an  illumination  of 
suffering,  and  forced  a  return  to  the  Protective  policy.  Instead  of 
acquiring  more  and  new  markets,  we  began  rapidly  to  lose  control 
of  our  own  at  home.  In  urging  upon  us  a  reciprocity  treaty  and  a 
tariff  for  revenue  only,  Great  Britain  is  doing  her  utmost  to  re 
gain  her  lost  ground  in  this  country. 


FARMERS  TAXED   TO  DEATH.  79 


CHAPTER     XVIII. 

FARMERS  TAXED  TO  DEATH. 

DURING  1871  the  New  York  Free  Trade  League  distributed  all 
through  the  West  immense  numbers  of  an  illustrated  sheet,  en 
titled  "The  People's  Pictorial  Tax-payer,"  in  which  appeared  a  state- 
meat,  profusely  elucidated  with  wood-cuts,  to  the  effect  that  "The 
farmer  rises  in  the  morning,  puts  on  his  flannel  shirt  taxed  65  per 
cent;  and  his  trousers,  taxed  60  per  cent.;  his  vest,  taxed  60  per 
cent.;  and  his  overcoat,  taxed  from  40  to  150  per  cent;  draws  on 
his  boots,  taxed  35  per  cent.;  puts  some  coal,  taxed  60  per  cent., 
in  his  stove,  taxed  55  per  cent.;  sits  down  to  his  breakfast  from  a 
plate  taxed  45  per  cent.;  seasons  his  food  with  salt  taxed  108  per 
cent." — and  so  on,  until  the  poor  fellow,  taxed  to  death,  sinks  to 
rest  in  a  grave  covered  with  a  heavily  taxed  tombstone,  and  slum 
bers  where  tariffs  molest  and  vex  no  more. 

Notwithstanding  that  the  only  truth  in  the  whole  representation 
was  that  "the  farmer  rises  in  the  morning,"  all  the  other  state 
ments  being  false,  this  caricature  of  the  facts  was  spread  broadcast 
among  our  agricultural  classes,  as  incontrovertible  evidence  that 
they  symbolized  Issachar — "a  strong  ass,  couching  down  between 
two  burdens" — all  on  account  of  our  iniquitous  and  oppress 
ive  tariff  system.  The  Free  Trade  press  took  up  the  cry,  foremost 
among  which  was  the  Chicago  Tribune,  and  repeated  it  to  our 
farmers,  in  a  multitude  of  forms  from  week  to  week.  Tillers  of 
the  soil  were  everywhere  told,  with  due  emphasis,  in  the  words 
of  the  Hon.  Horatio  C.  Burchard,  that  "  a  double  burden  falls 
upon  those  the  value  of  whose  products  must  be  measured  by 
the  price  in  the  foreign  market ;"  that  "  the  enhanced  price  occa 
sioned  by  the  duty  bears  directly  upon  them  as  consumers,  and 
ultimately  they  pay  a  portion  of  the  tax  imposed  upon  articles  con 
sumed  by  non-protected  trades  whose  services  they  require;"  and 


80  FARMERS  TAXED  TO  DEATH. 


that  "the  cotton  planter  and  wheat  and  corn  grower  pay  the 
duty  not  only  on  their  own  clothing,  wares,  and  implements,  but 
also  the  increased  price  upon  the  goods  and  tools  used  by  the 
carpenter,  blacksmith,  and  workmen  they  employ."  These  mis 
representations  were  made  in  the  face  of  the  fact  that  Canadians 
pay  the  duties,  amounting  to  eight  or  ten  million  dollars  annually, 
on  nearly  everything  they  export  into  the  United  States  ;  and  that 
other  foreigners  either  share  with  the  importer  the  payment  of  the 
duty,  or  sometimes  pay  it  all,  the  cases  not  being  numerous  where 
the  entire  duty  falls  upon  the  American  consumer.  For  all  that, 
falsehood  was  heaped  upon  falsehood,  and  repetition  hastened  on 
with  the  work  of  reiteration,  until  Western  farmers  were  aroused 
into  solicitude,  urged  into  scrutiny  of  their  surroundings,  and 
awakened  to  a  sense  of  oppression.  After  due  search,  they  dis 
covered  this  oppression,  not  in  our  system  of  Protection  to  home 
industry,  but  where  it  really  was — in  the  grinding  tax  of  transpor 
tation  to  distant  markets,  and  in  the  cost  of  maintaining  a  vast  num 
ber  of  supernumerary  middlemen.  Our  farmers  have  learned  that 
he  who  must  go  to  a  foreign  market  for  the  sale  of  his  surplus 
must  himself  pay  the  cost  of  getting  there,  be  that  cost  what  it  may. 
The  granger  movement  for  a  redress  of  grievances  has  been  the 
consequence — an  outcome  neither  intended  nor  expected  by  the 
Chicago  Tribune  and  its  Free  Trade  co-laborers  as  the  result  of  their 
false  teachings. 

Since  the  day  when  the  crusade  against  our  tariff  system  was  or 
ganized,  and  "The  People's  Pictorial  Tax-payer"  was  so  widely 
distributed,  we  have  had  a  financial  crisis,  and  a  universal  de 
pression  of  industry.  Fortunately,  no  part  of  the  United  States 
has  suffered  so  little  from  the  panic  as  the  West,  and  no  part  of 
its  population  less  than  the  agricultural  classes.  These  facts  have 
so  deeply  impressed  the  Chicago  Tribune  that  it  felt  impelled,  in  its 
leading  editorial  article,  Nov.  23,  1874,  to  say  what  follows: 

In  the  general  talk  at  the  East  of  hard  times  and  depression  of  business,  ac 
companied  by  the  closing  of  mills  and  the  reduction  of  working  time  in  others,  it 
is  a  comfort  to  turn  to  the  more  cheering  figures  which  indicate  THE  PROS 
PERITY  OF  THE  WEST.  Last  winter,  after  the  panic  had  stricken  the 
general  business  of  transportation,  the  rates  on  grain  were  so  much  lower  that, 
notwithstanding  the  close  of  navigation,  the  movement  of  grain  was  so  heavy 
during  the  whole  winter  that  the  surplus  of  the  Northwest  standing  over  in  the 


FARMERS  TAXED  TO  DEATH.  81 


spring  was  very  much  reduced.  So  great  was  the  reduction  that,  at  the  opening 
of  navigation  in  the  spring,  the  ordinary  high  rates  of  freight  on  the  lakes  for 
moving  the  winter  accumulation  did  not  prevail.  The  Western  producers,  there 
fore,  began  the  season  of  1874  with  more  cash  in  hand,  all  received  during  the 
winter,  than  had  ever  been  known  in  any  previous  year. 

If  there  is  any  truth  in  what  the  Chicago  Tribune  has  been 
preaching  for  years,  how  comes  it  that  our  farmers,  double-taxed 
by  the  operations  of  an  iniquitous  tariff  system,  ground  down  under 
foot  by  the  .bounties  they  were  compelled  to  pay  to  enrich  manu 
facturing  capitalists,  and  more  oppressed  by  Protective  duties 
than  any  other  class  in  the  country,  stand  forth  conspicuously  as 
the  most  prosperous  part  of  the  population  of  the  most  prosperout 
section,  when  the  blighting  effects  of  panic  and  crisis  descend 
upon  the  whole  land  ?  Is  not  this  a  very  strange  and  contradictory 
result  of  carrying  the  chief  burdens  of  tariff  taxation  for  more  than 
thirteen  years?  The  manufacturing  capitalists  of  the  East,  whose 
profits,  so  the  Chicago  Tribune  insists,  have  been  for  a  long  period 
made  plethoric  by  constant  and  large  exactions  wrested  from  our 
agricultural  classes  through  our  custom-house  laws,  are  the  greatest 
sufferers,  while  their  victims  thrive,  least  of  all  classes  feeling  the 
depression  of  business.  All  this  is  the  reverse  of  what  should  have 
taken  place,  considered  from  the  Tribune  point  of  view.  Accord 
ing  to  deductive  consequence,  the  manufacturing  capitalists  should 
have  been  at  the  top  of  the  heap  of  ruins  created  by  the  panic, 
while  their  dupes  and  victims,  the  farmers,  should  have  been  at  the 
bottom.  There  is  no  reasonable  explanation  of  this  contradiction 
between  teaching  and  facts,  except  that  the  Tribune  has  been  the 
champion  of  a  false  theory  of  tariff,  and  has  substituted  misrepre 
sentations  of  the  truth  for  the  truth  itself. 

In  reality,  our  farmers  are  now  just  beginning  to  reap  some  of 
the  substantial  benefits  of  a  long-continued  policy  of  Protection  to 
home  industry.  "Of  all  the  pursuits  of  man,"  Mr.  Carey  says, 
"the  last  developed  is  a  scientific  agriculture."  Its  development 
must  be  preceded  by  extensively  diversified  industry.  If  we  wish  to 
find  the  scientific  farmer,  we  must  look  for  him  amid  a  teeming 
population,  and  surrounded  by  a  multitudinous  development,  ma 
terial,  intellectual,  moral,  and  aesthetic,  such  as  the  Protective 
policy  confers ;  for  there  alone  can  he  secure  those  accessories 
which  enable  him  to  repay,  promptly  and  regularly,  to  the  land 


82  FARMERS  TAXED  TO  DEATH. 

the  vegetative  constituents  abstracted  by  the  processes  of  tillage; — 
constituents  lost  permanently  to  the  soil  by  the  butchery  of  a  rude 
and  ignorant  cultivation.  A  perfected  agriculture  is  the  tardy 
product  of  a  long,  laborious,  and  extensive  course  of  observation, 
experiment,  and  experience,  looking  to  the  use  of  the  forces  of 
nature  for  practical  ends.  No  other  one  pursuit  calls  to  its  aid 
such  a  diversity  of  knowledge.  The  whole  circle  of  the  sciences 
and  the  arts  is  made  tributary  to  its  successful  prosecution ;  ye^t 
a  country  devoted  to  the  production  of  provisions,  breadstuff's 
and  raw  materials — all  the  surplus  being  for  export  to  foreign 
countries — can  not  possess,  in  an  advanced  state,  the  sciences  and 
auxiliary  arts  most  essential  to  its  own  industry.  Thus,  chem 
istry  is  indispensable  to  a  prosperous  agriculture ;  but  who  would 
expect  to  find  that  science,  in  its  highest  cultivation,  in  a  commu 
nity  merely  of  farmers  and  herdsmen?  We  can  not  have  a  few 
isolated,  solitary  arts  in  complete  excellence.  They  are  social 
and  gregarious.  Each,  in  order  to  its  success,  requires  the  near 
and  ready  assistance  of  a  hundred  others.  Only  a  manufacturing 
people  can  develop  and  sustain  that  diversity  of  the  arts  and  the 
sciences  which  culminates  in  and  is  inseparable  from  a  scientific 
agriculture.  To  the  same  extent  that  diversification  enters  the 
domain  of  labor,  we  may  expect  to  see  improvement  in  the  methods 
and  results  of  tillage.  Carey  says,  and  it  is  true,  that  "  of  all  peo 
ple,  the  last  emancipated  are  the  laborers  in  the  field.''  Hence 
Protection  to  home  industry  is  emphatically  the  farmer' s  question. 
He  is  interested  in  it  more  than  anybody  else. 


RAILROAD  IRON— THE  TARIFF— TRANSPORTATION.  83 


CHAPTER    XIX. 

RAILROAD    IRON — THE    TARIFF — TRANSPORTATION. 

LENORA,  Fillmore  County,  Minn.,  April  8,  1875. 
To  the  Editor  of  the  Inter- Ocean  : 

Is  it  a  fact  that  "Cheap  Transportation"  by  means  of  road-bed,  rails,  and 
rolling  stock,  swollen  in  cost  by  a  high  tariff,  is  an  impossible  thing  ?  Could 
you  publish  tables  under  partial  Free  Trade  and  Protective  tariff  bearing  on 
this  point?  J.  M.  WHEAT. 

THE  main  question  put  by  our  correspondent  was  very  point 
edly  and  emphatically  answered  by  Governor  Carpenter,  of 
Iowa,  in  his  inaugural  address,  delivered  Jan.  27,  1874,  as  follows: 
Nor  is  it  the  tariff  that  burdens  the  farmer.  An  ingenious  writer  has  shown, 
by  estimating  with  great  care  and  by  unmistakable  mathematical  value  and  ex 
actness,  that  if  you  take  the  New  York  Central  Railroad  and  assume  that  it  ex 
tends  from  Chicago  to  New  York,  double-track  the  whole  distance,  laid  with  iron 
weighing  sixty-five  pounds  to  the  yard,  and  then  assume  that  this  iron  represents 
only  half  of  the  road's  consumption  of  iron,  and  further  assume  that  the  original 
cost  of  all  this  iron  was  increased  by  the  entire  tariff  which  would  have  been 
collected  on  each  ton  had  it  been  imported — when  he  has  granted  all  this  and 
assumed  all  this,  he  demonstrates  by  actual  computation,  taking  the  cost  of  trans 
port  of  one  thousand  and  twenty-one  million  tons  of  freight,  the  amount  this 
road  carried  one  mile  last  year,  that  the  exact  additional  charge  on  a  bushel  of 
wheat  from  Chicago  to  New  York  would  be  one  cent  and  one  hundred  and 
eighty-eight  thousandths  of  a  cent  on  account  of  the  tariff.  The  tariff  will  never 
ruin  the  Western  farmer. 

With  such  a  state  of  facts,  it  is  plain  that  road-bed,  rails  and 
rolling-stock  can  not  be  so  swollen  in  cost  by  the  present  tariff  as  to 
make  cheap  transportation  an  impossible  thing. 

An  indirect  answer  to  our  correspondent's  question,  with  an  ar 
gumentative  force  much  stronger,  is  found  in  a  memorial  to  Con 
gress  some  years  ago,  signed  by  more  than  ninety  officers  and  man 
agers  of  leading  railroads  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  from  Boston 
to  Charleston,  Milwaukee  and  St.  Louis.  These  roads  were  and 


84  RAILROAD  IRON— THE  TARIFF— TRANSPORTATION. 


are  large  consumers  of  steel  rails,  yet  they  asked  a  duty  of  two 
cents  per  pound,  equal  to  $44.80  per  ton,  on  the  imported  rail,  and 
offered  the  following  reasons  in  support  of  their  appeal : 

Immediately  before  the  construction  of  the  first  steel-rail  manufactory  in  this 
country,  foreign  makers  charged  $150  per  ton  (equal  then  to  $225  currency)  for 
steel  rails.  As  American  works  were  built,  foreign  skilled  labor  introduced, 
home  labor  instructed,  and  domestic  irons,  clays,  ganister  and  spiegel  (after  many 
and  expensive  trials)  found  to  produce  excellent  rails,  the  price  of  the  foreign 
article  was  gradually  lowered,  until  it.  now  (1870)  stands  at  less  than  $79  per  ton 
in  gold,  or  $96.38  currency.  Now  that  several  millions  of  dollars  have  been  ex 
pended  in  machinery,  furnaces,  and  experiments  in  perfecting  the  process  of 
manufacture  in  this  country,  and  numbers  of  our  own  citizens  are  dependent  upon 
it  for  support,  the  business  is  threatened  with  annihilation  by  the  pressure  of  En 
glish  and  Prussian  makers.  We,  as  users  of  steel  rails,  and  transporters  of  the 
food  and  material  for  American  manufacturers  and  their  numerous  employees 
and  skilled  laborers,  do  not  desire  to  be  dependent  exclusively  upon  the  foreign 
supply,  and  therefore  join  in  asking  that,  instead  of  the  present  ad  valorem  duty, 
a  specific  duty  of  two  cents  per  pound  be  placed  upon  this  article,  being  the  rate 
fixed  by  a  bill  which  passed  the  Senate  Jan.  31,  1867,  and  of  a  bill  which  was  re 
ported  to  the  House  by  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  during  the  same  year. 

The  eminent  railroad  managers,  signers  of  the  above  memorial, 
represented  about  half  the  total  length  of  all  the  railroad  tracks  in 
the  United  States,  or  some  26,449  miles.  Now,  if  the  inevitable 
effect  of  a  high  tariff  is  to  increase  the  price  of  the  dutied  article, 
whether  it  be  imported  or  home-made,  as  Free  Traders  assert,  is 
it  supposable  that  these  experts  in  railway  management,  who  annu 
ally  had  to  buy  and  pay  for  thousands  upon  thousands  of  tons  of 
steel  rails,  were  ignorant  of  the  fact?  How  could  they  have 
avoided  knowledge  of  a  fact  with  which  they  were  brought  in  con 
stant  contact  ?  With  such  premises,  we  are  driven  to  the  prepos 
terous  conclusion  that  more  than  ninety  of  the  most  experienced, 
sagacious  and  influential  railroad  men  in  this  country  deliberately 
appealed  to  Congress  to  so  legislate  as  needlessly  to  increase  the 
pecuniary  outlay  of  their  several  companies  in  extending  or  in  re 
laying  their  lines  of  track.  What  possible  inducement  could  these 
memorialists  have  had  thus  literally  to  throw  away  money  ?  When 
have  railroad  corporations  been  solicitous  to  be  taxed  and  to  pay 
taxes  ?  Who  ever  yet  saw  such  a  spectacle  ?  The  very  idea  is 
absurd.  It  is  incredible,  because  it  is  false.  The  memorialists 
knew  perfectly  well  what  they  were  about.  They  were  after  cheaper 
rails.  Moreover,  they  were  aware  that  the  way  to  that  end  was 


RAILROAD  IRON— THE  TARIFF— TRANSPORTATION.  85 


through  an  increase  of  the  duty.  Although  Congress  did  not 
grant  the  full  measure  of  relief  asked,  the  tariff  on  steel  rails  was 
changed  from  an  ad  valorem  of  45  Per  cent-  to  a  specific  of  i# 
cents  per  pound,  amounting  in  practice  to  an  addition  of  4  per 
cent,  to  the  former  rate  during  the  period  from  Jan.  i,  1871,  to 
Aug.  i,  1872.  Under  the  stimulus  imparted  by  this  legislative 
encouragement  and  protection,  coupled  with  the  great  demand  for 
rails  created  by  the  rapid  extension  of  our  railroad  system,  various 
new  rail  works  were  established  in  the  United  States,  by  which  a 
strong  competition  was  engendered  among  American  producers, 
besides  the  rivalry  with  foreign  makers,  the  inevitable  tendency 
being  to  lower  prices.  In  short,  the  wise  forecast  of  the  memo 
rialists  has  been  made  manifest  in  the  result ;  for  American  steel 
rails  are  now  selling  at  $75  currency  per  ton,*  below  the  price  real 
ized  for  iron  rails  two  years  ago,  and  that,  too,  in  our  markets, 
where  English  steel  rails  can  not  be  afforded  at  less  than  $95  cur 
rency.  As  a  consequence,  railroads  may  now  be  constructed  at  a 
lower  cost  than  before,  which  is  proof  positive  that  our  tariff,  so 
far  from  being  an  impediment,  is  really  an  energetic  aid  to  cheap 
transportation.  Here,  if  it  be  true,  as  Free  Traders  assert,  that  the 
duty  is  necessarily  added  to  the  price  of  the  dutied  article,  whether 
imported  or  home-made,  the  pertinent  inquiry  arises,  Why  are 
American  steel  rails  sold  at  $75,  when  English  steel  rails  are  held 
at  $95  ?  Why  do  not  domestic  producers  compel  consumers  to 
pay  either  the  whole  or  part  of  that  additional  $20  per  ton,  when, 
according  to  Free  Trade  theory,  they  have  full  power  to  make  that 
exaction?  A  theory  thus  contradicted  by  every-day  experience 
must  be  worthless  for  any  practical  purpose,  and  certainly  should 
not  be  adopted  as  a  trusty  guide  in  the  enactment  of  tariff  laws. 
These  two  facts  are  of  more  value  and  importance  than  a  dozen 
cart-loads  of  Free  Trade  theories— that  the  price  of  foreign  steel 
rails  has  been  reduced,  within  a  few  years,  by  the  pressure  of 
American  competition,  from  $150,  gold,  per  ton,  to  $95,  currency, 
and  that  our  domestic  makers  are  underselling  the  latter  price  by 
$20.  Now,  when  it  is  considered  that  such  competition,  so  poten 
tial  in  bringing  down  prices,  has  been  the  offspring  of  our  Protec 
tive  tariff,  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  policy  of  Protection  is 
conducive  to  cheap  transportation. 

*Since  this  chapter  was  written  the  price  has  been  still  further  reduced. 


86  RAILROAD  IRON— THE  TARIFF— TRANSPORTATION. 


A  very  high  Free  Trade  authority,  no  less  than  David  A.  Wells 
himself,  is  officially  committed  to  the  same  general  view  we  have 
taken  of  the  cheapening  tendency  and  effects  of  Protective  duties. 
In  his  report  for  1867,  as  Special  Commissioner  of  the  Revenue, 
he  said  : 

On  steel  much  higher  rates  of  duty  than  those  recommended  upon  iron  are 
submitted.  Although  these  rates  seem  much  higher,  and  are  protested  against  by 
not  a  few  American  consumers  of  steel,  yet  the  evidence  presented  to  the  Com 
missioner  tends  to  establish  the  fact  that  if  any  less  are  granted  the  development 
of  a  most  important  and  desirable  branch  of  domestic  industry  will,  owing  to  the 
present  currency  derangement  and  the  high  price  and  scarcity  of  skilled  labor, 
be  arrested,  if  not  entirely  prostrated.  This  is  claimed  to  be  more  especially 
true  in  regard  to  steel  of  the  higher  grades  or  qualities.  It  is  also  represented 
to  the  Commissioner  that,  since  the  introduction  of  the  manufacture  of  these 
grades  of  steel  in  the  United  States,  or  since  1859,  the  price  of  foreign  steel  of 
similar  qualities  has  been  very  considerably  reduced  through  the  effect  of  the 
American  competition,  and  that  the  whole  country  in  this  way  has  gained  more 
than  sufficient  to  counterbalance  the  tax  levied  as  a  protection  for  the  American 
steel  manufacture,  which  has  grown  up  under  its  influence. 

At  the  time  Mr.  Wells  gave  these  deliberate  utterances  to  the 
world,  as  the  result  of  his  official  investigations,  he  had  not  sent 
himself  to  England  at  the  public  expense,  and  there  received  a 
round  of  flattering  entertainments  that  described  the  circle  of 
British  Free  Trade  propagandism.  When  he  had  studied  the  needs 
of  our  industrial  condition  from  a  patriotic  standpoint,  he  was  con- 
vinced  that  the  Protective  policy  had  been  a  gain  to  the  whole 
country;  but  when  he  studied  the  same  subject  from  the  British 
point  of  observation,  he  discovered  that  the  same  policy  had  been  a 
loss  and  a  snare  to  his  countrymen.  At  a  meeting  of  the  American 
Iron  and  Steel  Association,  held  in  Washington,  January  16,  1867, 
Mr.  Wells  had  said  : 

I  desire  here  and  now,  unequivocally  and  unreservedly,  to  declare  that,  in  the 
British  sense  of  the  word,  there  is  no  Free  Trade  in  me.  From  my  earliest  child 
hood  I  have  been  taught  the  value  of  the  doctrines  of  Protection,  and  it  has  been 
my  fortune  to  sit  at  the  feet  of  that  great  teacher  of  political  economy,  Henry  C. 
Carey,  and  learn  from  him  the  great  principles  on  which  these  doctrines  are 
founded — the  complete  and  universal  harmony  between  all  the  producing  inter 
ests  of  the  country.  In  that  faith  I  am  as  strong  to-day  as  I  ever  was. 

But  it  required  only  a  visit  to  England,  and  audience  given  to 
the  Manchester  school  of  political  economists,  to  wipe  all  these 
convictions  from  his  mind  as  a  sum  sponged  from  a  slate.  He 


RAILROAD  IRON-THE  TARIFF— TRANSPORTATION.  87 


came  back'  with  British  lenses  before  his  eyes,  and  never  since 
has  been  able  to  see  any  American  manufacturer  except  through 
their  distorting  medium.  Yet  the  original  judgment  of  Mr.  Wells 
is  fully  supported  and  vindicated  by  the  present  state  of  the  facts. 
He  declared  in  1867  that  the  welfare  of  the  higher  grades  or  quali 
ties  of  steel  was  involved  in  a  maintenance  of  highly  Protective 
duties.  Now,  that  very  class  of  steel  is  new  quoted  in  New  York 
at  the  following  prices  :  American,  14^  to  15^  cents  per  pound 
in  currency  ;  English,  17^  cents  gold.  Here  is  another  example 
of  the  cheapening  effects  of  Protection  to  home  industry.  Of 
course,  when  steel  is  so  reduced  in  price,  iron  must  be  still  lower; 
hence  we  are  able  to  say  that  iron  rails  are  now  selling  at  $45,  cur 
rency,  per  ton  ;  and  that  no  foreign  rails  can  be  imported  to  com 
pete  with  these  figures.  Our  Protective  system,  in  less  than  four 
teen  years,  has  made  us  independent  of  European  sources  for  our 
supply  of  railroad  iron,  and  equally  independent  as  regards  steel 
rails.  To-day  we  can  build  railroads  cheaper  with  home-made  steel 
rails  than  some  years  ago  we  could  with  imported  iron  rails.  How, 
then,  can  road-bed,  rails  and  rolling  stock  be  so  swollen  in  cost  by 
a  hi«ri  tariff  as  to  make  cheap  transportation  an  impossible  thing  ? 

Increased  cost  in  production,  it  may  be  worth  while  to  relate, 
is  not,  as  Free  Traders  dogmatically  assert,  an  inseparable  adjunct 
of  our  Protective  system.  The  lowest  average  price  at  which  for 
eign  rails,  of  iron,  were  ever  before  now  sold  in  the  American  mar 
ket  was  $44  per  ton,  during  the  first  seven  months  of  1861.  That 
was  in  gold.  If,  as  is  the  fashion,  we  reduce  the  present  currency 
price  of  American  rails,  or  $45  per  ton,  to  equivalent  coin, 
at  the  prevailing  quotation  of  114  for  gold,  we  shall  have  $39.46 
as  the  result,  or  $4.54  per  ton  lower  than  the  lowest  price  of  for 
eign  rails  ever  before  reached.  Yet  we  are  told,  with  an  immense 
expenditure  of  emphasis,  that  our  Protective  system  is  a  device  to 
plunder  the  masses  of  the  people,  and  especially  Western  farmers, 
in  the  spurious  name  of  industrial  development;  and  that  the 
tariff  duties  on  the  materials  which  enter  into  the  construction  of 
railroads  are  so  extravagantly  high  that  freights  and  fares  are  forced 
to  be  raised  in  proportion.  For  all  that,  the  proofs  of  the  allega 
tion  are  as  hard  to  find  as  the  traditional  needle  in  the  traditional 
haystack. 

It  needs  to  be  noticed  that  while  cost  in  production  has  receded 


RAILROAD  IRON-THE  TAR  IFF -TRANSPORTATION. 


in  the  United  States  it  has  advanced  in  Great  Britain — that  cen 
tral  seat  of  Free  Trade  propagandist^  plainly  showing  that  the 
system  of  tariff  adopted  there  does  not  necessarily  promote  cheap 
ness,  nor  prove  a  safeguard  against  a  considerable  rise  in  prices. 
For  many  years  her  cheap  labor  operated  with  all  the  force  and 
effect  of  a  Protective  tariff.  Now  that  her  labor  is  becoming  dear 
as  compared  with  that  of  various  European  countries,  she  encoun 
ters  many  of  the  difficulties  that  would  beset  the  United  States 
under  her  system  of  duties.  Never  before  has  her  manufacturing 
ascendancy  been  in  such  mortal  peril  as  it  is  to-day ;  and  bank 
ruptcy  of  great  iron  establishments  is  assuming  an  alarming  extent 
and  frequency. 

The  following  statement  from  the  editorial  columns  of  the  Phila- 
delphia  North  American,  May  28,  1874,  illustrates  the  independ 
ence  achieved  by  this  country  in  the  manufacture  of  Bessemer 
steel  rails. 

Large  orders  for  steel  rails  have  been  taken  by  the  Chicago  and  Joliet  rolling 
mills,  amounting  to  seventy-five  thousand  tons,  at  forty  per  cent,  less  than  the 
ruling  rate  of  1873,  and  twenty-five  per  cent,  less  than  the  current  rate  for  for 
eign  rails.  They  are  for  the  Rock  Island,  Alton,  Illinois  Central,  Michigan 
Central,  and  the  Central  Pacific,  and  Union  Pacific,  and  are  to  replace  old  iron 
rails. 

On  inquiry  at  the  proper  quarters,  we  find  the  above  statement 
to  be  correct,  with  the  exception  that  the  Chicago  and  Northwestern 
Road  should  have  been  included  in  the  list.  These  facts  speak 
trumpet- tongued  of  the  cheapening  tendencies  and  effects  of 
Protective  duties.  Transportation  is  in  process  of  being  cheapened 
by  our  tariff  system,  which  has  fostered  the  manufacture  of  steel 
rails  upon  American  soil,  multiplied  rolling  mills,  led  to  import 
ant  improvements  in  mechanical  appliances,  energized  home 
competition,  -brought  down  prices,  and  given  the  domestic  market 
to  the  domestic  producer.  If  in  all  these  years  we  had  had  the 
kind  of  tariff  which  Free  Traders  extol,  our  railroads  would  now 
be  at  the  mercy  of  foreign  high  prices,  and  might  be  paying  the 
English  for  steel  rails  $120,  gold,  per  ton,  delivered  in  New  York 
as  one  Western  road  actually  is,  in  fulfillment  of  an  old  contract. 


SELL  DEAR;    BUY  CHEAP.  89 


i 


CHAPTER    XX. 

SELL  DEAR  J    BUY  CHEAP. 

N  another  column  will  be  found  a  letter  from  a  correspondent 
signing  himself"  Traveler,"  who,  after  according  to  this  pa 
per  honesty  of  purpose  and  ability  in  argument,  joins  issue  with 
the  positions  occupied  by  the  Inter- Ocean  on  the  currency  and  the 
tariff.  Before  taking  up  the  point  which  we  intend  chiefly  to 
notice,  we  shall  answer  his  fundamental  proposition,  thus  stated  : 

Government  exists  for  the  protection  of  individuals.  This  is  the  sum  and 
substance  of  its  object,  and  beyond  this  it  should  not  go. 

Such,  however,  is  not  the  language  of  the  preamble  to  the 
organic  law  of  the  Union,  in  these  words  : 

We  the  people  of  the  United  States,  in  order  to  form  a  more  perfect  union, 
establish  justice,  insure  domestic  tranquility,  provide  for  the  common  defense, 
promote  the  general  welfare,  and  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty  to  ourselves  and 
our  posterity,  do  ordain  and  establish  this  Constitution  for  the  United  States  of 
America. 

It  thus  appears  that  our  Government,  at  least,  looked,  in  its  in 
stitutions,  not  to  individuals,  but  to  communities — that  it  exists 
to  protect  and  preserve  society ;  that  its  seminal  design  was  to  cre 
ate  a  nation  out  of  fragmentary  bodies  of  people  ;  to  that  end  pos 
sessing  and  maintaining  relations  which  are  external  or  foreign, 
besides  those  which  are  internal  or  domestic ;  and  sometimes, 
to  the  same  end,  depriving  individuals  of  life,  or  shut 
ting  them  up  in  prison,  condemned  to  hard  labor  for  a  term  of 
years.  All  this  embraces  much  more  than  is  embraced  in  the 
statement,  that  "  government  exists  for  the  protection  of  individ 
uals."  Government  exists  for  many  things  more,  among  which 
are  various  public  interests,  as  harbors,  light-houses, ^military  roads, 
the  national  lands,  education,  and  the  like,  these  extending  far 
beyond  the  mere  "protection  of  individuals,"  and  requiring  the 


90  SELL   DEAR;    BUY  CHEAP. 

exercise  of  additional  functions.  The  revenue  system  and  the 
currency  system  that  may  be  adopted  by  Government  must  be 
judged,  therefore,  by  their  effects  upon  the  mass  of  individuals — 
upon  the  general  welfare — upon  the  body  politic.  Our  objection  to 
the  Free  Trade  policy  is,  that,  wherever  it  has  been  even  partially 
practiced,  it  has  operated  as  a  retrogressive  force,  as  is  exemplified 
in  the  cases  of  Turkey,  Portugal,  and  Ireland,  and  is  beginning  to 
be  manifested  in  the  case  of  England  herself.  Our  correspondent 
says  further : 

The  farmer,  having  raised  his  produce,  should  first  sell  it  for  all  he  can  get  in 
cash,  and  then  spend  his  surplus  profits  hiring  or  purchasing  for  cash  where  he 
can  do  so  the  cheapest. 

Here  we  have  a  repetition  of  one  of  the  stereotyped  errors  of  the 
Manchester  school  of  political  economists.  To  buy  in  the  cheapest 
market,  and  to  sell  in  the  dearest,  is  a  maxim  of  the  first  rank  in 
the  Free  Trade  philosophy.  This  maxim,  however  high-sounding 
and  seductive  it  is  in  theory,  violates  in  practice  its  own  princi 
ples  and  precepts.  Those  who  buy  cheap  must  necessarily  purchase 
of  those  who  sell  cheap,  and  who,  therefore,  do  not  sell  in  the 
dearest  market,  according  to  the  specific  injunction  laid  upon 
them  as  part  of  their  duty  to  themselves.  On  the  other  hand, 
those  who  sell  dear  must  find  purchasers  who  do  not  buy  cheap, 
and  who  consequently  set  at  naught  the  exhortation  to  buy  in  the 
cheapest  market.  By  the  terms  of  the  maxim,  all  buyers  are  to 
buy  cheap,  and  all  sellers  are  to  sell  dear.  How  all  members  of  a 
community  are  to  buy  in  the  cheapest  market  while  all  are  selling 
in  the  dearest,  or  how  all  are  to  sell  in  the  dearest  market  while  all 
are  buying  in  the  cheapest,  is  one  of  those  puzzles  which  it  would 
require  a  miracle  to  solve.  Yet  this  impracticability  is  exactly 
what  Free  Trade  philosophy  demands  shall  be  done  every  day,  and 
what  it  extols  as  the  very  quintessence  of  commercial  wisdom. 

When  we  attempt  to  apply  the  maxim  to  different  countries  or 
communities,  the  same  inconsistencies  appear.  If  England  should 
buy  cheap  of  the  United  States,  and  sell  dear  to  the  United  States  ; 
or  should  buy  of  us  dear  and  sell  to  us  cheap  ;  or  should  buy  of  us 
dear  and  sell  to  us  dear ;  or  should  buy  of  us  cheap  and  sell  to  us 
cheap,  either  England  or  the  United  States  would,  in  each  case, 
violate  the  teachings  of  the  Free-Trade  maxim.  If  England  should 


SELL  DEAR;    BUY   CHEAP. 


buy  cheap  of  the  United  States,  and  not  sell  to  us  at  all,  but  sell 
dear  to  some  other  country,  then  both  the  United  States  and  that 
other  country  would  set  at  naught  the  exhortations  of  the  maxim, 
the  United  States  failing  to  obey  the  injunction  to  sell  dear,  and 
the  other  country  the  injunction  to  buy  cheap.  Indeed,  no  coun 
try  or  countries  can  possibly  buy  cheap  and  sell  dear,  unless  some 
other  country  adopts  into  practice  a  course  at  war  with  the  teach 
ings  of  the  maxim  ;  for  no  country  can  buy  cheap  or  sell  dear 
without  finding  some  other  country  that  will  reverse  the  proce 
dure  by  selling  cheap  or  buying  .dear—\haA.  is  to  say,  by  doing  the 
exact  contrary  of  what  the  Free  Trade  maxim  enjoins  upon  it  as  a 
duty.  To  be  an  operative  maxim,  not  contradicting  in  practice 
its  own  precepts  and  obligations,  it  must  necessarily  be  restricted 
to  -a  few  countries,  or  to  all  countries  except  one,  the  theory  in 
such  case  being  that  certain  countries  are  endowed  with  special, 
exclusive  rights  of  trade,  and  there  being  a  limitation  upon  the 
privileged  countries  that  they  can  not  carry  on  commerce  with  one 
another,  else  there  would  be  an  immediate  violation  of  the  rule  ; 
for,  the  moment  any  one  of  the  number  bought  cheap,  another 
would  have  to  sell  cheap,  which  certainly  would  not  be  selling 
dear ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  whenever  one  of  these  countries 
sold  dear,  some  other  of  the  countries  would  have  to  buy  dear, 
which  assuredly  would  not  be  buying  cheap,  according  to  the  spe 
cific  exhortation  of  the  maxim.  Now,  as  it  is  impossible  for  all 
countries  together  and  at  once  to  be  buying  in  the  cheapest  mar 
ket  and  selling  in  the  dearest,  there  is  no  way  to  make  the  rule 
operative  at  all,  unless  it  shall  be  confined  to  a  certain  number  of 
countries  excluded  from  commercial  exchange  with  one  another, 
yet  clothed  with  exceptional  privileges  of  trade  with  some  other 
country  or  countries,  A,  B,  and  C — separate  and  distinct  coun 
tries — might  be  able  to  buy  cheap  of  and  sell  dear  to  D,  E,  F,  G, 
and  H,  but  these  eight  countries  could  not  possibly  do  so  among 
themselves  indiscriminately.  Then,  as  the  Free  Trade  maxim  can 
not  be  made  of  universal  application,  will  somebody — our  corres 
pondent,  for  instance — be  so  good  as  to  indicate  what  countries 
are  to  be  privileged  to  buy  cheap  and  sell  dear,  and  what  countries 
— shall  we  say  the  United  States,  for  one?— are  submissively  to  sell 
cheap  and  buy  dear ;  and  on  what  principle  of  morality  he  justi- 


92  SELL    DEAR;    BUY   CHEAP. 


fies  such  limitations — necessary  limitations — of  the  operation  of  his 
pet  maxim  ?  Or,  failing  in  this,  will  he,  or  any  other  Free  Trader 
who  supposes  he  understands  the  process,  be  so  obliging  as  to  ex 
plain  how  it  is  practicable  for  all  commercial  nations  to  comply 
with  his  maxim  of  trade  ? — how  all  nations  are  to  buy  in  the  cheap 
est  market  while  all  are  selling  in  the  dearest,  or  how  all  are  to 
sell  in  the  dearest  while  all  are  buying  in  the  cheapest  ? 

It  thus^ appears  that  this  Free  Trade  maxim  has  neither  utility 
nor  sense,  when  universally  applied.  It  is  merely  a  rule  of  self 
ishness  and  aggrandizement ;  for,  to  buy  cheap  is  to  buy  at  less 
than  the  market  or  real  value ;  and  to  sell  dear  is  to  sell  at  more 
than  the  thing  is  worth.  One  or  several  countries  may  thrive  by 
practicing  such  sharp  bargain-making,  but  it  must  be  by  victim 
izing  other  countries,  either  by  buying  of  them  cheap,  or  by  selling 
to  them  dear.  Both  parties  to  commerce  so  carried  on  could  not 
gain.  All  the  advantage  would  be  on  one  side ;  all  the  depriva 
tion  on  the  other.  The  Spaniards,  discovering  America,  practiced 
on  this  maxim  in  exchanging  a  few  glass  beads  and  some  gaudy 
trinkets  for  commodities  of  great  commercial  value.  Really,  the 
precept  is  the  essence  of  self-seeking,  constitutes  the  very  spirit  of 
making  haste  to  be  rich,  and  could  not  have  originated  in  any 
feeling  of  broad  philanthropy,  or  of  doing  unto  others  as  you 
would  have  others  do  unto  you. 

Nor  is  this  all.  The  maxim  contradicts  another  Free  Trade 
maxim  of  equal  authority,  and  of  equally  binding  obligation.  Those 
who  agree  that  all  persons  should  buy  in  the  cheapest  market  and 
sell  in  the  dearest  likewise  insist  that  consumers  are  more  numer 
ous  than  producers,  and  that  the  rights  and  interests  of  the  former 
are  paramount  to  those  of  the  latter,  so  that  the  need  of  consumers 
to  have  cheapness  is  to  be  consulted  before  the  need  of  producers  to 
have  dearness.  Consequently,  whenever  a  commodity  is  sold  dear, 
the  right  and  interest  of  the  consumer  to  get  it  cheap  are  invaded, 
and  he  has  just  cause  of  complaint  against  the  seller.  Notwith 
standing  this,  a  fundamental  maxim  of  Free  Trade  lays  upon  the 
seller  an  imperative  injunction  to  sell  dear,  and  also  upon  the  pur 
chaser,  at  the  same  time,  to  buy  cheap.  If  producer  or  dealer 
sells  any  vendible  cheap,  he  violates  a  duty  he  owes  to  himself;  if 
either  sells  such  vendible  dear,  he  violates  a  right  belonging  to 


SELL  DEAR;    BUY  CHEAP. 


consumers,  and  which  he,  as  an  integral  unit  of  society,  owes  to 
them.  If  the  consumer  buys  cheap,  he  induces  the  vendor  to 
break  the  precept  that  exhorts  him  to  sell  dear ;  or,  should  the 
consumer  buy  dear,  then  he  upholds  a  wrong  to  his  class  which 
society  should  see  put  down.  Whether  the  dealer  sells  either  dear 
or  cheap,  and  whether  the  consumer  buys  either  cheap  or  dear, 
they  both  violate  each  other's  rights  or  privileges,  considered 
from  a  Free  Trade  stand-point.  In  fact,  there  can  be  neither  buy 
ing  nor  selling  without  violating  a  precept  which  the  Free  Traders 
esteem  as  of  the  highest  importance.  Thus  does  visionary  theory 
butt  its  head  very  hard  against  practice,  and  experience,  and  com 
mon  sense,  getting  badly  worsted  in  the  encounter.  Such  is  the 
result  of  closet-logic,  inventing  maxims  of  conduct  without  con 
sulting  experience. 

The  truth  is  that  the  price  of  a  sale  always  embodies  a  compro 
mise  or  adjustment  of  conflicting  interests  between  buyer  and  sell 
er,  unless  some  element  of  compulsion  enters  into  the  contract — 
a  compromise  which  varies  according  to  the  knowledge,  needs, 
and  other  surroundings  of  the  parties  to  the  transaction.  It  is  one 
of  the  crowning  merits  of  the  Protective  policy  that  it  more  and 
more  tends  to  establish  circumstances  which  result  in  increasing 
the  prices  of  raw  materials  and  the  rate  of  wages,  and  in  reducing 
the  prices  of  finished  products.  An  example  of  these  conse 
quences  is  found  in  the  case  of  the  woolen  manufacturer  in  Indi 
ana,  who,  in  1860,  under  partial  Free  Trade,  paid  25  cents  per 
pound  for  wool  and  $1.50  per  day  for  labor,  wholesaling  g-oz. 
jeans  at  60  cents  per  yard;  yet  who,  in  1874,  under  a  Protective 
tariff,  paid  50  cents  per  pound  for  wool  and  $3  per  day  for  labor, 
wholesaling  g-oz.  jeans  at  50  cents  per  yard.  A  whole  bookful  of 
impracticable  maxims  weighs  as  nothing  in  the  scale  against  this 
single  fact. 


94  AMERICAN   POTTERY. 


CHAPTER   XXI. 

AMERICAN    POTTERY. 

BEFORE  the  series  of  Protective  tariffs  which  began  their 
course  in  1861,  this  country  was  disgracefully  dependent  upon 
foreign  manufacturers  for  its  supply  of  earthen,  stone,  and  porcelain 
ware.  Such  was  the  state  of  facts,  notwithstanding  that  the  United 
States  hold  the  greater  part  of  the  available  coal  of  the  world,  near  to 
inexhaustible  quantities  of  varied  clays  and  other  potting  materials, 
besides  possessing  unusual  attractions  for  skilled  and  ordinary  labor. 
Under  Protection,  the  whole  face  of  the  situation  has  been  changed. 
Says  William  P.  Blake,  in  his  general  survey  of  the  ceramic  arts, 
which  prefaces  his  report  on  that  department  of  the  late  Exposition 
at  Vienna  : 

The  industry,  especially  in  the  d;rection  of  earthenware,  and  the  common 
cheap  pottery,  such  as  Rockingham,  yellow-ware,  and  stone-ware,  has  increased 
rapidly  of  late  years,  under  the  stimulus  afforded  by  the  tariff  and  the  premium 
on  gold.  According  to  the  last  census,  there  were  777  establishments  for  the 
manufacture  of  stone  and  earthenware  distributed  through  the  several  States,  the 
highest  numbers  being  170  in  Ohio,  and  198  in  Pennsylvania.  Only  fifteen  are 
reported  in  Massachusetts.  Eighty-two  steam-engines,  with  an  aggregate  of  1,586- 
horse  power,  were  in  use,  besides  eight  water-wheels  of  122-horse  power.  Hands 
employed,  6,116;  capital  invested,  $5,294,398;  amount  paid  in  wages,  $2,247,- 
173;  materials  are  valued  at  $1,702,705;  value  of  the  products,  $6,045,536. 
The  number  of  persons  reporting  their  occupation  as  potters  is  5,060. 

The  following  are  the  chief  points  at  which  the  potteries  are  located:  in  New 
Jersey,  at  Trenton,  Jersey  City,  and  Gloucester;  in  Ohio,  at  East  Liverpool  and 
Cincinnati;  New  York,  in  the  city,  and  at  Flushing  and  Greenpoint,  L.  I.; 
Pennsylvania,  Philadelphia  and  Pittsburgh;  Illinois,  Peoria;  Maryland,Baltimore; 
Massachusetts,  Boston;  and  in  Missouri  at  St.  Louis.  In  1872  it  was  estimated 
that  there  were  148  kilns  in  seven  States,  capable  of  producing  at  the  rate  of 
$30,000  annually  per  kiln,  which  would  amount  to  $4,440,000  per  annum,  and 
would  use  75,000  tons  of  coal,  and  75,000  tons  of  clay  and  other  materials. 

The  industry  has  taken  root  firmly  in  New  Jersey,  at  Trenton,  and  bids  fair 
to  thrive  permanently.  That  locality  offers  the  advantages  of  extensive  deposits 


AMERICAN    POTTERY. 


of  the  finest'clays;  cheap  transportation  by  water,  as  well  as  by  rail;  and  the 
proximity  to  the  coal  region  and  to  two  large  cities  combine  to  foster  its  growth, 
and  to  make  the  locality  the  Staffordshire  of  the  United  States. 

Meantime,  with  all  this  growth  of  domestic  production,  the  home 
market  is  expanding  faster  than  the  rate  of  supply  from  home 
sources,  as  is  evidenced  by  the  values  of  earthen,  stone,  and  china 
ware  imported  into  this  country  during  the  following  fiscal  years : 
In  1869,  $4,372,607;  in  1870,  $4,388,771  ;  in  1871,  $4.681,376; 
in  1872,  $5,270,785;  in  1873,  $6,015,945,  and  in  1874,  $4,882,- 
*  355:  aggregate  for  six  years,  $2-9,611,839.  Of  this  very  large 
aggregate,  Great  Britain  contributed  to  the  amount  of  $23,766,- 
646,  distributed  annually  as  follows  :  in  1869,  $3,687,532  ;  in  1870, 
$3*571,859;  in  1871,  $3,889,397;  in  1872,  $4,151,150;  in  1873, 
$4,646,688,  and  in  1874,  $3,820,020.  But  Englishmen  are  not 
satisfied  with  this  close  approach  to  a  monopoly  of  the  patronage 
we  bestow  upon  foreigners.  On  the  contrary,  their  souls  are  aglow 
with  indignation  at  the  restrictions  placed  on  international  com 
merce  by  our  iniquitous  system  of  tariff.  So  deeply  are  these  cos 
mopolitan  philanthropists  imbued  with  feelings  of  disinterested 
solicitude  for  our  industrial  development  and  welfare — to  be  brought 
about  by  Free  Trade ! — that  several  English  manufacturers  last 
year  visited  the  United  States  to  familiarize  themselves  with  the 
nature  and  extent  of  the  American  competition  which  had  begun 
to  overmaster  them  in  our  markets,  and  which  was  threatening  to 
annihilate  their  business  in  this  country.  These  large-hearted, 
generous-minded,  sympathetic  Britons  were  so  overwhelmed  with  a 
sense  of  the  folly,  delusion,  and  injustice  embodied  in  our  Protec 
tive  policy,  that  they  returned  home  with  the  noble  resolve,  as 
they  expressed  it,  "  to  unroof  the  potteries  in  Trenton,  and  destroy 
the  plant  of  capital  there."  This  reveals  the  genuine  spirit  of 
British  Free  Trade,  whose  occult  meaning  is  that  we  should  send 
our  clay,  our  sand  and  our  coal  over  the  ocean  to  be  worked  into 
objects  for  our  daily  use,  rather  than  manufacture  for  ourselves. 
When  we  shall  have  reached  that  degree  of  enlightened  sagacity, 
of  circuitous  exchange,  and  of  practical  common  sense,  we  may 
hope  to  be  kindly  granted  the  privilege  of  exporting  our  wheat  to 
England,  there  to  be  converted  into  flour,  and  thence  to  be  brought 
back,  before  we  convert  it  into  bread.  Then  we  shall  be  prosper 
ous,  indeed  !  Such  are  the  blessings  of  Free  Trade.  Let  us  learn, 


AMERICAN   POTTERY. 


therefore,  that,  the  more  commodities  are  moved  to  and  fro,  the 
lower  will  be  the  prices,  and  the  more  extensive  the  commerce  :— 
in  other  phrase,  take  the  manufacturer  away  from  the  side  of  the 
consumer;  interpose  three  or  four  thousand  miles  between  the  two  ; 
increase  the  number  of  middlemen  and  the  demand  for  the  ma 
chinery  of  transportation :  at  once  you  will  set  in  motion  a  series  of 
causes  that  ,tend  inevitably  to  cheapness.  That  is  the  'milk  in 
the  Free  Trade  cocoanut.  In  its  last  analysis,  British  Free  Trade 
means  that  the  United  Kingdom — with  its  vast  mercantile  navy,  its 
numerous  insurance  companies,  its  extensive  network  of  branch  * 
houses,  agents,  factors,  and  banking  facilities,  its  astute  devices  of 
consular  action  and  of  diplomatic  manipulation,  and  its  prodi 
gious  resources  for  manufacturing— shall  become  a  sort  of  commer 
cial  sponge  to  soak  up  the  profits  of  the  world's  exchanges.  The 
threat,  "  to  unroof  the  potteries  in  Trenton,  and  destroy  the  plant 
of  capital  there,"  represents  the  spirit  of  that  so-called  Free  Trade 
which  would  crush  out  the  reproductive  arts  in  every  rival  country, 
merely  in  order  to  give  Great  Britain  more  markets  in  which  to  sell 
her  finished  products. 

A  gentleman  in  Philadelphia — Horace  J.  Smith,  Esq. — who  has 
made  a  special  study  of  the  pottery  industry  in  this  country,  sends 
us  the  following  statement : 

Crockery  manufacturers  have  already  so  cheapened  their  processes,  under  the 
stimulus  of  a  home  competition,  as  not  only  to  drive  English  goods  of  the  lowest 
grades  entirely  out  of  the  market,  (viz:  yellow  and  Rockingham,)  but  they  have 
almost  entirely  shut  out  the  next  better  grade  (the  C.  C.  or  cream- colored)  from 
importation.  They  are  successfully  competing  with  the  best  English  manufac 
turers  for  the  American  demand  for  white  stone-ware,  as  well  in  price  as  in 
quality;  so  that,  with  the  maintenance  of  Protection  for  one  decade  longer,  we 
may  hope  to  attain  complete  commercial  independence  of  England  in  this  re 
spect.  The  manufacture  of  porcelain,  too,  which  is  the  finest  product  of  the 
ceramic  art,  has  already  taken  root  in  the  United  States;  and  in  the  near  future 
we  may  expect  that  neither  \yare  from  "China,"  nor  "  Delft"  from  Holland,  nor 
even  "  Queens  ware  "  from  monarchical  England,  will  find  a  place  in  American 
homes. 

Closer  relation  between  the  consumer  and  the  crockery  manufacturer  has  so 
forced  itself  upon  the  latter  as  a  necessity  for  his  prosperity,  that  it  is  in  con 
templation  to  establish  potteries  either  in  Chicago  or  Milwaukee,  or  in  both.  As 
an  additional  inducement,  the  ground  for  a  factory  has  been  offered  as  a  gra 
tuity  to  an  enterprising  Eastern  manufacturer,  .provided  he  will  establish  himself 
at  Milwaukee.  Whichever  point  is  selected — whether  one  of  the  two  named, 


AMERICAN   POTTERY.  97 


or  some  other-offering  greater  inducements  of  location  or  of  pecuniary  assistance 
— may  anticipate  a  promotion  of  its  general  interests  in  various  and  unex 
pected  directions.  A  permanent  sign  in  one  of  the  main  streets  of  Trenton 
points  the  way  to  one  of  its  many  potteries,  with  this  additional  notice  to  the 
farmer — "  Oat  straw  bought."  So  apparently  insignificant  an  item  (yet  straws 
show  which  way  the  wind  blows)  points  the  farmer  which  way  his  interest  lies. 
Without  a  diversification  of  industries,  the  straw  may  rot,  (or  even,  as  has  been 
the  case,  be  burned  to  get  rid  of  it,)  the  clay  lie  inert  and  valueless  in  the  bank, 
the  building  materials  never  be  assembled  to  form  cosy  homes,  no  coal  be  mined, 
no  railroads  built,  and  no  enhanced  value  put  upon  the  farmer's  acres.  With 
.the  pottery  established,  comes  also  a  demand  from  its  operatives  for  every  varied 
product  of  the  farm :  "  walk-away  crops,"  such  as  cattle,  are  needed  and  kept  at 
home;  the  full-uddered  cow  lows  for  the  milkman;  and  they  do  say  that  even 
water  to  thin  down  her  lacteal  richness  comes  into  demand ! 

As  has  been  proved  by  J.  W.  Foster,  Esq.,  the  "pre-historic  races  of  mound- 
builders  "  maintained  a  dense  population  in  the  Mississippi  Valley ;  but  we  can 
never  reproduce  this  condition  if  we  separate  the  producer  from  the  consumer 
by  long  distances,  as  is  enforced  by  remaining  a  purely  agricultural  people.  By 
all  means,  then,  invite  the  potter,  the  tanner,  the  shoemaker,  the  spinner,  the 
clothier,  the  hatter,  the  sugar-refiner,  the  butcher,  the  baker,  the  candle-stick 
maker — in  short,  all  classes  of  manufacturers — to  come  and  make  their  abode 
close  by  the  Western  farmer. 

As  yet,  we  have  made  scarcely  more  than  a  beginning  of  the 
pottery  manufacture  in  this  country,  which  is  peculiarly  rich  in  all 
the  elements  requisite  for  the  successful  and  permanent  develop 
ment  of  the  ceramic  arts.  Even  as  early  as  1770  it  became  evi 
dent  to  the  British  potters  that  the  pottery  industry  might  be 
started  in  America  to  the  detriment  of  their  trade ;  and  Wedge- 
wood,  whose  name  is  identified  with  the  growth  of  artistic  pottery 
in  Britain,  wrote  as  follows  : 

The  trade  to  our  colonies  we  are  apprehensive  of  losing  in  a  few  years,  as  they 
have  set  on  foot  some  pot-works  there  already,  and  have  at  this  time  an  agent 
amongst  us  hiring  a  number  of  our  hands  for  establishing  new  pot-works  in 
South  Carolina.  They  have  every  material  there,  equal  if  not  superior  to  our 
own,  for  carrying  on  that  manufacture.  We  can  not  help  apprehending  such 
consequences  from  these  emigrations  as  make  us  very  uneasy  for  our  trade  and 
prosperity. 

In  Great  Britain  the  ramifications  of  the  manufacture  are  quite 
numerous,  embracing,  as  they  do,  thirty-nine  distinct  trades  en 
gaged  in  the  potter's  and  connected  arts,  besides  seventeen  other 
occupations  employed  in  supplying  raw  materials  or  machinery. 
With  due  Protection  we  may  expect  to  reach  a  still  higher  degree 


AMERICAN  POTTERY. 


of  development,  and  ultimately  to  become  extensive  exporters, 
not  only  of  crockery,  but  also  of  those  porcelain  wares  which  em 
body  artistic  excellence,  and  sometimes  the  triumphs  of  genius 
for  fictile  design.  So  far  every  advancing  step  in  the  industry  on 
our  soil  has  been  rapidly  upward.  Already  the  inventive  talent 
of  our  countrymen  has  very  largely  substituted  labor-saving  ma 
chinery  for  the  toil  of  human  hands  so  prevalent  in  Europe,  with 
the  immediate  effect  of  greatly  cheapening  cost  in  production,  and 
thus  placing  American  manufacturers  more  nearly  upon  an  equality 
of  competition  with  the  long-established  factories  in  the  Old 
World,  based  on  low  wages.  In  the  production  of  several  classes 
of  wares  an  overwhelming  advantage  has  been  gained  in  this  way. 
An  instance  of  this  appears  in  the  fact  that  porcelain  door-knobs 
have  fallen  in  price  at  the  pottery  works  from  $12  to  $3  per  thou 
sand.  Other  hardware  trimmings  are  now  sold  for  less  than  one- 
quarter  of  the  price  they  brought  from  1845  to  1848,  when  the 
duty  was  much  lower  than  it  now  is.  With  growing  experience 
in  business,  and  with  improved  methods  in  manufacture,  results  of 
such  kind  will  be  multiplied,  until  expansion  of  demand  and 
domestic  rivalry  shall  so  permanently  and  comprehensively  achieve 
cheapness  as  to  shut  out  foreign  competition,  besides  giving  us  a 
large  export  trade.  Then  we  shall  not  need  to  go  to  Minton,  Hol- 
lins  &  Co.,  of  Great  Britain,  in  order  to  procure  tile  pavement 
for  our  public  buildings,  as  we  had  to  do  for  the  new  capitol 
at  Washington.  But  without  Protection  to  home  industry,  we 
would  have  to  buy  from  England  not  only  tiles,  but  even  the  ma 
terial  for  our  national  flag,  as  used  to  be  the  shameful  case. 


A  PROTECTIVE  TARIFF  AND  EXPORTS.  99 


CHAPTER   XXII. 

A  PROTECTIVE  TARIFF  AND  EXPORTS. 

GRANT,  NEB.,  December  4,  1874. 
To  the  Editor  of  the  Inter- Ocean. 

If  manufacturers  in  this  country  require  such  a  high  Protective  tariff,  how  can 
they  afford  to  send  their  goods  to  the  Eastern  Continent,  and  there  compete  with 
foreign  manufacturers?  Please  answer  in  the  Weekly  Inter- Ocean.  P.  FORD. 

AS  yet,  a  very  small  fraction  of  our  finished  products  is  ex 
ported  to  the  Eastern  Continent.  We  have  made  a  beginning 
in  that  way,  and  it  is  increasing ;  but  the  great  bulk  of  our  exports 
of  manufactures  goes  to  foreign  countries  on  the  Western  Continent, 
and  to  the  adjacent  islands.  For  example,  we  exported,  during  the 
fiscal  year  1874  various  passenger  and  freight  cars  for  railroads  to 
the  number  of  1,083.  Of  these,  6  went  to  Belgium,  10  to  Ger 
many,  12  to  England,  and  i  to  Scotland,  or  only  29  in  all  to 
Europe.  The  rest  were  distributed,  81  to  the  Argentine  Republic, 
31  to  Brazil,  18  to  Central  American  States,  286  to  Chili,  222  to 
Nova  Scotia  and  New  Brunswick,  188  to  Quebec  and  Ontario,  32 
to  Mexico,  68  to  Peru,  67  to  Cuba,  10  to  the  United  States  of  Co 
lombia,  and  51  to  Uruguay,  or  1,054,  being  more  than  97  per 
cent,  of  all,  to  ports  in  North  and  South  America  and  Cuba.  How 
ever,  we  send  large  quantities  of  clocks,  sewing  machines,  agricul 
tural  implements,  and  some  other  articles  to  the  Eastern  Conti 
nent. 

A  comparatively  small  part  of  our  exports  takes  the  form  of 
fabrics.  During  the  fiscal  year  1874  we  exported  domestic  pro 
ducts  to  the  enormpus  value  of  $693,039,054.  Of  this  vast  sum 
$3,310,388  represented  living  animals,  $161,1 98,864  breadstuffs, 
$211,223,580  raw  cotton,  $41,103,516  petroleum  of  various  grades, 
$78,328,990  provisions,  $2,758,933*  spirits  of  turpentine,  $8,135,- 
320  tallow,  and  $32,968,528  tobacco  and  its  manufactures,  making 
a  total  of  $539,028,119,  the  whole  being  either  raw  materials  or 


100  A  PROTECTIVE  TARIFF  AND  EXPORTS. 

manufactures  but  little  advanced  beyond  raw  materials.  Even  of 
the  remaining  $154,010,935  of  exports,  a  considerable  portion 
stands  for  like  products,  as  $3,285,210  for  naval  stores,  and  $21,- 
353,721  for  timber,  lumber,  masts,  spars,  staves,  and  other  forms 
of  wood,  only  $1,882,767  of  the  sum  representing  furniture,  and 
$1,772,410  other  manufactures.  These  facts  show  that  our  manufac 
turing  industry,  notwithstanding  its  great  development  in  recent 
years,  is  still  merely  in  its  infancy,  arid  needs  the  fostering  en 
couragement  of  Protective  legislation. 

The  United  States  are  extensive  exporters  of  food  and  of  raw 
materials.  These  are  mainly  taken  by  the  great  manufacturing 
nations  of  Europe,  which  are  extensive  exporters  of  finished  pro 
ducts.  Much  of  our  foreign  trade  is  imbued  with  the  policy  of 
" selling  a  rabbit's  skin  for  a  sixpence,  and  buying  back  the  tail 
for  a  shilling."  This  false  mode  of  exchanges  can  be  superseded 
only  by  the  multiplication  of  the  arts  and  the  sciences  upon  our  own 
soil.  To  accomplish  such  result,  the  constant  aim  should  be  to 
bring  the  loom  and  the  anvil  everywhere  into  close  neighborhood 
to  the  plow  and  the  harrow;  for  then  alone  can  we  consume  our 
own  food  and  reproduce  our  own  raw  materials,  exporting  the  sur 
plus  in  its  highest  forms.  Then  alone  can  labor  find  steady  em 
ployment  in  its  various  departments,  all  aptitudes  be  set  at  work, 
and  the  productive  forces  kept  fully  occupied ;  for  laboring 
power,  of  whatever  kind,  like  time,  unless  utilized  at  the  very  mo 
ment  of  existence,  drifts  unproductively  into  the  past,  and  is  lost 
beyond  recall,  the  country  and  the.  man  both  being  poorer  by 
what  might  have  been  produced  by  the  use  of  the  power.  It  is  the 
province  of  a  high  Protective  tariff  to  aid  in  creating  and  in  main 
taining  those  conditions  which  result  in  regular  employment  for 
all,  and  the  highest  measure  of  production  and  consumption, 
whose  other  name  is  general  prosperity.  These  preliminary  obser 
vations  are  essential  to  a  thorough  understanding  of  the  subject. 

Two  sets  of  agencies,  co-operative  in  this  country,  under  a  sys 
tem  of  Protection  to  home  industry,  enable  our  manufacturers  to 
export  their  finished  products,  thus  overmastering  the  competition 
of  cheap  labor  in  foreign  countries.  These  agencies  are : 

(i)  Superiority  of  make,  as  regards  both  material  and  work 
manship,  and  complete  adaptability  to  intended  uses,  causing  the 


A  PROTECTIVE  TARIFF  AND  EXPORTS.  101 

article  to  be  more  desirable  than  its  European  rivals,  even  though 
they  be  offered  at  a  lower  money  price. 

(2)  Labor-saving  machines,  which  may  be  tended  by  one  or 
more  persons,  sometimes  even  by  a  child,  yet  which  will  do  the 
work  of  five,  ten,  fifteen,  twenty-five,  or  a  hundred  able-bodied 
men  in  a  day,  reduce  cost  in  production  to  a  small  fraction  of  its 
former  amount,  and  overmaster  the  competition  of  manual  pro 
cesses  still  in  vogue  in  Europe. 

Our  common  chopping  axe  is  an  example  under  the  first  prop 
osition.  An  immense  amount  of  intelligence  has  been  expended 
upon  this  instrument  of  toil.  Its  weight  and  shape,  the  bevels  of 
its  sides,  the  location  in  the  general  mass  of  the  hole  which  re 
ceives  the  helve,  the  position,  length,  and  curvatures  of  the  han 
dle,  have  all  been  designed  to  accomplish  the  most  work  with  the 
least  outlay  of  strength.  These  adaptabilities  have  been  largely 
neglected  in  the  manufacture  of  the  foreign  axe.  Hence  it  is  that 
the  Sheffield  (England)  Telegraph  said,  not  many  weeks  ago : 
"The  steel  of  an  American  axe  is  so  superior  to  that  of  an  import 
ed  axe,  that  no  pioneer  who  understands  his  business  will  ever 
carry  any  other  with  him  into  the  wilds."  And  hence  it  is  that 
the  London  (England)  Times  said  editorially,  in  the  early  part  of 
1871 : 

The  Americans  succeed  in  supplanting  us  by  novelty  of  construction  and  ex 
cellency  of  make.  They  do  not  attempt  to  undersell  us  in  the  mere  matter  of 
price.  Our  goods  may  still  be  the  cheapest,  but  they  are  no  longer  the  best,  and 
in  a  country  where  an  axe,  for  instance,  is  an  indispensable  instrument,  the  best 
article  is  the  cheapest,  whatever  it  may  cost.  Settlers  and  emigrants  soon  find  this 
out,  and  they  have  found  it  out  to  the  prejudice  of  Birmingham  trade. 

An  example  of  the  advantages  derived  by  this  country  under  our 
second  proposition  is  to  be  found  in  the  manufacture  of  clocks,  in 
which  we  outrival  the  world.  All  the  important  parts  of  these 
cheap  time-keepers  are  made  by  labor-saving  machinery.  In 
1841,  Connecticut  clocks  were  just  beginning  to  be  exported  to 
England,  where  they  sold  at  first  at  an  advance  of  a  thousand  per 
cent,  on  cost. 

This  export  trade  is  constantly  increasing  in  quantity  and  in  the 
number  of  foreign  markets.  During  the  four  years  ended  June 
30,1874,  we  exported  clocks  and  parts  thereof  to  the  value  of  $3,- 
107,712,  fractionally  distributed  as  follows:  In  1871,  $552,155; 


102  A  PROTECTIVE  TARIFF  AND  EXPORTS. 


in  1872,  $679,162  ;  in  1873,  $868,888;  in  1874,  $1,007,507.  In 
the  last  year  England  took  to  the  value  of  $533,600;  Scotland, 
$34,205;  Germany,  $103,688;  China,  $12,461;  Japan,  $61,485. 

Another  striking  example  under  our  second  proposition  is  to  be 
found  in  the  rising  manufacture  of  crockery  in  this  country.  We 
quote  from  an  editorial  article  in  the  Philadelphia  Press,  Nov.  16, 
1874: 

Another  industry,  too,  may  wane  in  England,  to  grow  correspondingly  great 
in  the  United  States,  and  this  is  the  crockery  manufacture.  It  is  well  named 
Wrtww-facture,  as  so  much  is  done  by  hand,  and  so  little  (at  least  in  the  old  coun 
try)  by  machinery.  At  Trenton,  N.  J.,  some  unprogressive  European  potters 
were  settled,  as  well  as  some  ingenious  Yankees.  It  is,  or  at  least  was,  a  while 
back,  amusing  to  walk  from  the  factory  of  one  to  the  factory  of  the  other.  The 
original  methods  in  use,  perhaps  from  the  infancy  of  our  race,  were  pursued  in 
the  one,  even  as  they  are  to-day  at  Staffordshire  by  such  distinguished  potters  as 
Minton,  the  maker  of  encaustic  tiles  for  the  world.  One  of  the  first  processes  in 
making  pottery  is  to  thoroughly  intermix  the  clay  and  water,  and  this  was  done 
by  some  of  the  Trenton  potters,  as  it  is  still  done  in  England,  by  men  stirring  the 
ingredients  together  with  paddles  in  large  vats.  When  the  clay  and  water 
have  come  to  the  consistency  of  cream,  the  men  ladle  the  "slip,"  as  it  is  called, 
from  the  vat  into  the  sieves.  Then  shaking  the  sieve,  which  consists  of  fine  cam 
bric,  over  another  vat,  after  the  fine  material  has  passed  through,  the  coarser 
particles  are  emptied  out,  and  the  sieve  refilled.  Such  has  been  the  process  for 
ages,  and  conservative  Englishmen  pursue  it  to  this  day.  But  stepping,  as  we 
say,  from  one  pot-house  to  another,  we  find  steam  rotating  paddles  in  the  slip- 
vat,  and  steam  pumping  the  slip  up  into  sieves,  which  are  themselves  swiftly  agi 
tated  by  steam.  Such  are  the  contrasts  exhibited  between  European  and  Amer 
ican  mechanics  and  manufacturers. 

Now,  a  high  Protective  tariff  promotes  and  maintains  the  con 
ditions  amid  which  such  industrial  developments  can  take  place. 
No  one  will  begin  a  manufacture  without  reasonable  prospect  of 
finding  a  market  for  his  product.  If  foreigners  occupy  and  en 
gross  his  domestic  market,  he  can  not  expect,  when  he  may  be 
undersold  at  home,  to  secure  a  profitable  market  abroad,  in  competi 
tion  with  those  very  foreigners.  Under  such  circumstances  he  will 
make  no  venture.  Should  he  do  so,  he  will  run  the  risk  of  being 
ruined  by  the  intolerance  of  his  foreign  rivals,  who  will  combine  to 
prevent  the  success  of  his  infant  enterprise,  by  overwhelming  him 
with  exceptionally  cheap  prices,  until  he  is  compelled  to  retire 
from  the  unequal  contest,  whereupon  those  rivals,  rid  of  the  compe 
tition,  resume  a  monopoly  control  of  our  market,  raise  their  prices, 


A  PROTECTIVE  TARIFF  AND  EXPORTS.  1Q3 


and  reimburse  themselves  from  consumers  for  their  losses  in  break 
ing  down  the  American  industry.  Such  is  the  certain  result  when 
there  are  no  customs  duties.  But  if  a  high  Protective  tariff 
should  be  laid  on  the  import  of  such  articles  as  we  can  ourselves 
produce,  then  the  crushing-out  process  becomes  very  expensive, 
and  is  almost  sure  to  fail.  Consequently,  capital  is  encouraged  to 
invest  in  manufacturing  undertakings ;  domestic  labor  receives  em 
ployment  ;  home  resources  are  developed  ;  industry  is  rapidly  di 
versified;  purchasing  power  is  created  by  the  payment  of  wages; 
production  and  consumption  grow  apace;  commerce  becomes 
active  and  widespread  ;  inventive  genius  is  everywhere  stimulated  ; 
labor-saving  machinery  is  multiplied  in  all  directions;  finished 
products  grow  cheaper  and  cheaper;  the  sciences  and  arts  flourish ; 
prosperity  is  universal;  and  the  freedom  of  man  expands  and 
intensifies.  If  we  have  not  had  this  full  measure  of  blessing,  it  is 
because  our  tariff  policy  has  been  capricious,  vacillating  and  un 
reliable,  thus  creating  fluctuations  of  effect;  and  leading  to  conflict 
and  disorder. 

Manufacturers,  considered  as  a  class,  require  a  high  Protective 
tariff  as  a  means  of  securing  a  market  for  their  products.  If  a 
man  makes  100  tin  pans  a  week,  which  he  must  sell  at  an  average 
profit  of  twenty-five  cents,  in  order  to  carry  on  his  business  and 
live,  he  would  be  far  better  off  if  he  could  make  and  sell  10,000 
pans  a  week  at  a  profit  of  one  cent  each  ;  for  he  would  gain,  in  the 
former  case,  only  $25  ;  in  the  latter,  $100.  Not  only  would  he 
benefit  his  customers;  he  would  also  give  increased  employment 
and  wages  to  labor.  Every  additional  mechanic  he  would  employ 
would  require  additional  food,  clothing,  etc.,  to  be  supplied  by 
somebody  else.  By  such  interaction  and  reaction,  all  persons 
willing  to  labor  may  ultimately  find  steady  employment  and  good 
pay.  Then  each  produces  something  to  be  exchanged  for  some 
thing  else.  The  greater  the  number  of  commodities  produced, 
the  greater,  other  things  being  equal,  will  be  the  number  of  ex 
changes.  Commerce  tends,  therefore,  to  grow  with  the  increase 
of  production ;  and  production  tends  to  increase  under  a  high 
Protective  tariff. 

Under  a  non-Protective  tariff  the  result  is  different.  Then  we 
surrender  to  European  countries  the  bulk  of  our  manufacturing  in- 


104  A  PROTECTIVE  TARIFF  AND  EXPORTS. 

dustry.  We  hire  cheap  foreign  labor  to  convert  raw  materials  into 
finished  products  for  our  use,  instead  of  bestowing  the  employment 
upon  labor  at  home ;  doom  a  multitude  of  our  people  to  partial 
idleness ;  reduce  the  general  rate  of  wages  ;  cripple  the  productive 
forces ;  and  compel  a  shrinkage  in  consumption.  Therefore  our 
manufacturers 'require  a  high  Protective  tariff,  because  it  will  give 
them  possession  of  their  home  market ;  our  laboring  classes  re 
quire  it,  because  it  will  secure  for  them  full  employment,  with 
good  pay ;  and  our  whole  people  require  it,  because  it  is  conducive 
to  substantial  and  permanent  prosperity. 


WHY  OUR  MANUFACTURERS  WANT  PROTECTION.  1Q5 


CHAPTER   XXIII. 

WHY  OUR  MANUFACTURERS  WANT  PROTECTION. 

following  query  embodies  a  difficulty  which  has   puzzled 
JL     many  who  are  unfamiliar  with  the  comprehensive  workings  of 
our  tariff  system : 

CHICAGO,  June  28,  1875. 
To  the  Editor  of  the  Inter-Ocean. 

You  say  that  high  Protective  duties  operate  to  cheapen   the  prices  of  manu 
factures.     If  so,  why  do  our  manufacturers  want  such  duties?     W.  B.  TERRY. 

Our  manufacturers  want  Protection,  although  it  operates  to  re 
duce  prices,  because  the  practical  benefits  of  Protective  duties  are 
found,  not  so  much  in  diminishing  regular  importations  made  by 
our  own  merchants,  with  a  full  knowledge  of  the  wants  of  the 
country,  but  in  securing  our  ports  of  entry  from  being  flooded 
with  surpluses  forced  upon  us  by  foreigners,  to  relieve  their  own 
superabundance  and  sustain  their  home  prices,  or  to  overwhelm 
our  industries  at  any  temporary  sacrifice,  that  they  may  command 
our  markets.  England,  our  principal  competitor,  from  whom  we 
have  derived,  within  the  last  twenty-four  fiscal  years,  39.391  per 
cent,  of  the  total  value  of  our  imports,  can  produce  a  long  list  of 
fabrics  cheaper  than  we,  on  account  of  her  far 'cheaper  labor,  much 
lower  interest  on  money,  and  immense  accumulation  of  capital, 
and  can  undersell  our  manufacturers  on  our  own  soil  when  she 
chooses.  It  invariably  happens  that  her  lords  of  the  loom  and  her 
earls  of  the  rolling-mill  choose  to  do. so  whenever  the  rising  pros 
perity  of  our  manufacturing  enterprises  begins  to  supply  the  needs 
of  American  consumers.  Then  a  vast  aggregate  of  foreign  com 
modities  is  ruthlessly'  thrown  upon  our  well-stocked  home  markets, 
at  lower  and  still  lower  prices,  thus  ruinously  forcing  down  to  that 
level  the  selling  values  of  our  whole  domestic  product,  even  al 
though  it  may  be  tenfold  the  quantity  of  the  imported  articles. 
This  cheapening  process  is  kept  up  until  our  home  producers  are 


106  WHY  OUR  MANUFACTURERS  WANT  PROTECTION. 


worn  out  with  the  unavailing  struggle,  and  are  driven  out  of  busi 
ness  or  into  bankruptcy.  Meantime,  the  British  schemers  have 
themselves  lost  heavily,  but  can  well  endure  the  strain  of  the 
losses,  on  account  of  their  much  larger  capital,  coupled  with  prof 
its  on  their  trade  carried  on  with  other  countries,  producers  in 
the  United  States  generally  not  possessing  such  a  compensating 
advantage.  The  victory  thus  won,  leaving  our  manufacturers 
crippled  or  prostrated,  their  foreign  rivals  boldly  step  in  for  our 
trade,  which  they  monopolize  with  unsparing  rapacity,  prices  often 
being  advanced,  under  these  circumstances,  to  50  and  even  100  per 
cent,  on  what  they  had  been  before  the  struggle  began.  The  tem 
porary  cheapness  which  beguiled  and  deluded  our  consumers  dis 
appears  altogether,  instead  of  which  they  find  themselves  the  help 
less  dupes  and  victims  of  a  heartless  foreign  extortion.  With  pos 
session  and  control  of  our  market  assured,  British  producers  reim 
burse  themselves  for  their  losses  out  of  the  pockets  of  our  people, 
who  are  thus  made  to  pay  the  cost  of  breaking  down  the  barrier 
erected  to  shield  them  against  the  merciless  practices  of  transat 
lantic  rapacity.  Says  B.  F.  French,  in  his  "  History  of  the  Iron 
Trade  of  the  United  States : ' ' 

It  is  an  established  fact  that,  in  many  departments  of  English  indvistry,  those 
who  are  interested  will  carry  them  on  at  a  loss  for  years,  to  aid  in  retaining 
markets  from  which  they  are  in  danger  of  being  excluded  by  commercial  re 
strictions  or  industrial  competition;  and  scarcely  a  branch  of  industry  has  sprung 
up  in  the  United  States  which  has  not,  at  first,  had  to  encounter  a  severe  strug 
gle  in  consequence  of  the  foreign  article  being  reduced  in  price  below  that  with 
which  it  had  been  expected  to  compete. 

That  this  statement,  in  regard  to  certain  manufacturing  capital 
ists  in  England,  misrepresents  neither  their  acts  nor  their  motives, 
is  made  evident  by  the  following  open  avowal  which  we  find  in  an 
official  document.  It  occurs  in  a  report  presented  to  Parlia 
ment  by  a  commission  appointed  in  1854  to  inquire  into  the  oper 
ation  of  an  act  relating  to  the  mining  population.  Here  it  is: 

The  laboring  classes  generally,  in  the  manufacturing  districts  of  this  country, 
and  especially  in  the  iron  and  coal  districts,  are  very  little  aware  of  the  extent  to 
which  they  are  often  indebted  for  their  being  employed  at  all  to  the  immense 
LOSSES  which  their  employers  voluntarily  incur  in  bad  times  in  order  TO 
DESTROY  FOREIGN  COMPETITION,  AND  TO  GAIN  AND  KEEP  POS 
SESSION  OF  FOREIGN  MARKETS.  Authentic  instances  are  well  known 
of  employers  having,  in  such  times,  carried  on  their  works  at  a  loss  amounting 


WHY  OUR  MANUFACTURERS  WANT  PROTECTION.  107 


in  the  aggregate  to  three  or  four  hundred  thousand  pounds  sterling  in  the  course 
of  three  or  four  years.  If  the  efforts  of  those  who  encourage  the  combinations 
to  restrict  the  amount  of  labor  and  to  produce  strikes  were  to  be  successful  for 
any  length  of  time,  the  great  accumulations  of  capital  could  no  longer  be  made 
which  enable  a  few  of  the  most  wealthy  capitalists  to  overwhelm  all  foreign  compe 
tition  in  times  of  great  depression,  and  thus  clear  the  way  for  the  whole  trade  to 
step  in  WHEN  PRICES  REVIVE,  and  to  carry  on  a  great  business  before  for 
eign  capital  can  again  accumulate  to  such  an  extent  as  to  be  able  to  establish  a 
competition  in  prices  with  any  chance  of  success.  The  large  capitals  of  this 
country  are  the  great  instruments  of  warfare  against  the  competing  capital  of  for 
eign  countries,  and  the  most  essential  instruments  now  remaining  BY  WHICH 
OUR  MANUFACTURING  SUPREMACY  CAN  BE  MAINTAINED;  the 
other  elements— cheap  labor,  abundance  of  raw  materials,  means  of  communica 
tion,  and  skilled  labor — being  rapidly  in  process  of  being  equalized. 

Under  our  present  tariff  system,  these  schemes  of  spoliation  are 
impracticable,  so  far  as  the  United  States  are  concerned.  The 
duties  which  must  be  paid  at  our  custom  houses,  before  foreign 
goods  can  gain  admission  into  this  country,  make  a  crusade  upon 
our  industries,  in  the  form  of  a  ruinously  cheapening  process,  too 
costly  to  be  undertaken,  and  too  unlikely  of  success.  Instead  of 
that,  we  have  many  and  fulsome  praises  of  the  assumed  blessings  of 
Free  Trade.  Unrestricted  competition  with  pauper  labor  in 
Europe,  and  with  low  interest  on  money,  and  with  immense  accu 
mulations  of  capital,  is  to  pour  a  flood  of  cheap  commodities  into 
the  United  States,  to  the  great  advantage  of  consumers.  But  what, 
meantime,  is  to  become  of  American  producers'*.  When  they  shall 
be  ruined  or  driven  out  of  business  by  the  deluge  of  temporary 
cheapness,  what  is  to  prevent  the  British  manufacturers  from  mak 
ing  a  ruthless  monopoly  out  of  their  possession  and  control  of  our 
market,  prices  being  forced  up  as  high  as  the  power  of  resistancer 
will  endure  ?  Under  such  circumstances,  the  cost  of  what  is  mis 
called  Free  Trade — what  is  really  the  slavery  of  commerce- 
would  far  exceed  the  cost  of  maintaining  and  prospering  our  own 
industries.  The  fact  is,  the  people  most  to  be  benefited  by  a 
repeal  of  the  duties  on  iron,  steel,  cottons,  woolens,  and  other 
staple  articles,  are  the  monopolizing  capitalists  across  the  ocean. 
Intelligent  Englishmen  fully  comprehend  this  truth.  What  they 
think,  in  the  sincerity  of  their  hearts,  of  the  policy  of  Free  Trade, 
is  manifest  from  the  following  extract  from  a  speech  of  a  member 
of  the  British  Parliament,  delivered  at  a  time  when  the  United 
States  had  adopted  the  policy  of  Protection,  and  quoted  by  Henry 
Clay,  in  1832,  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States. 


108  WHY  OUR  MANUFACTURERS  WANT  PROTECTION. 

It  was  idle  for  us  to  endeavor  to  persuade  other  nations  to  join  with  tts  in  adopt 
ing  the  principles  of  what  was  called  "Free  Trade."  Other  nations  knew,  as  well 
as  the  noble  lord  opposite,  and  those  who  acted  with  him,  what  we  meant  by  ltj?ree 
Trade"  was  nothing  more  nor  less  than,  by  means  of  the  great  advantages  we 
enjoyed,  to  get  a  monopoly  of  all  their  markets  for  our  manufactures,  and  to  prevent 
them,  one  and  all,  from  ever  becoming  manufacturing  nations.  When  the  system 
of  reciprocity  and  Free  Trade  had  been  proposed  to  a  French  ambassador,  his 
remark  was,  that  the  plan  was  excellent  in  theory,  but,  to  make  it  fair  in  practice 
it  would  be  necessary  to  defer  the  attempt  to  put  it  in  execution  for  half  a  cen 
tury,  until  France  should  be  on  the  same  footing  with  Great  Britain,  in  marine, 
in  manufactures,  in  capital,  and  the  many  other  peculiar  advantages  which  it  now 
enjoyed.  The  policy  France  acted  on  was  that  of  encouraging  its  native  manu 
factures,  and  it  was  a  wise  policy;  because,  if  it  were  freely  to  admit  our  manu 
factures,  it  would  speedily  be  reduced  to  the  rank  of  an  agriciiltural  nation,  and 
therefore,  a  poor  nation,  as  all  must  be  that  depend  exclusively  upon  agriculture. 
America  acted,  too,  upon  the  same  principle  with  France.  America  legislated  for 
futurity — legislated  for  an  increasing  population.  America,  too,  was  prospering 
under  this  system. 

Here  we  find  plenty  of  reasons  why  our  manufacturers  want  Pro 
tection,  even  though  it  operates  to  cheapen  prices.  They  are  re 
lieved  thereby  from  foreign  fluctuations  and  excesses,  from  foreign 
machinations  and  interference.  No  matter  how  capable  or  how 
energetic  any  people  may  naturally  be,  nor  how  favored  in  posi 
tion,  or  climate,  or  soil,  their  industrial  capacities  can  never  be 
fully  developed  under  a  vacillating  and  uncertain  public  policy. 
Men  do  not  embark  either  capital  or  skill  in  enterprises  liable  at 
any  time  to  be  defeated  by  inconsiderate  or  unfriendly  legislation. 
A  stable  order  of  things  and  a  well-founded  confidence  in  the 
future  are  all-essential  conditions  of  manufacturing  success.  Such 
stability  and  such  confidence  are  supplied  by  sufficiently  Protect 
ive  legislation.  Under  it,  prices  have  always,  in  general,  exhibited 
a  downward  tendency  as  regards  all  finished  products,  while  farm 
ers  have  received  better  prices  for  their  produce.  So  long  as  the 
Protective  duties  remain  upon  the  national  statute-book,  there  is  a 
guarantee  that  British  aggression  can  not  be  made  effectual  for  the 
ruin  of  American  establishments.  Assuredly  these  are  valid  and 
cogent  reasons  why  our  manufacturers  want  Protection,  and  why 
it  should  be  both  granted  and  maintained.  More  than  that,  these 
are  equally  strong  reasons  why  American  consumers  should  sustain 
and  continue  the  beneficent  tariff  system  now  in  operation. 


FARMERS'  SUPPLIES  CHEAPENED  BY  PROTECTION.  109 


CHAPTER     XXIV. 


'*  T)UT  for  the  high  import  duties  imposed  by  the  tariff,  farmers' 
D  supplies  would  be  as  cheap  as  before  the  war."  This  is  a 
constant  assertion  by  the  Free  Trade  press — an  assertion  based 
upon  imaginary  facts.  The  truth  is  all  the  other  way.  Never  be 
fore  in  our  history  has  agricultural  produce  or  its  money  proceeds 
had  so  much  purchasing  power  for  the  finished  products  of  the 
loom,  the  anvil,  or  the  shop. 

One  of  the  largest  reaper  manufacturers  in  the  United  States 
gives  us  the  following  facts  in  regard  to  reapers.  During  the  four 
years  1857-60  his  establishment  made  a  single  bar  and  single 
wheel  reaper  which  was  sold  for  $155.  The  commission  for  selling 
was  $10  on  each  machine.  Much  of  the  labor  was  paid  for  at  75 
cents  a  day.  In  1872  he  sold  a  double  bar  and  double  wheel 
reaper  for  $200,  in  1873  f°r  $200,  in  1874  for  $195,  in  1875  ^or 
$i  85,  and  paid  $30  dollars  for  selling.  He  now  pays  $1.50  for  the 
same  class  of  labor  that  was  obtained  for  only  75  cents  before  the 
war.  The  reaper  of  the  present  day  would  cost  considerably  more 
to  manufacture,  if  material  were  the  same  price  as  in  1857,  be 
cause  it  consists  of  more  pieces,  is  built  more  strongly,  is  more 
thoroughly  finished,  works  more^  easily,  and  does  better  service 
than  the  reapers  made  before  the  war,  and  is  estimated  by  the  maker 
to  be  worth  at  least  50  per  cent.  more. 

The  following  statement  relative  to  plows  and  cultivators  ap 
peared  in  the  Chicago  Evening  Journal,  Nov.  5. 

In  a  recent  interview  with  the  manager  of  the  largest  implement  manufactoiy 
in  the  Northwest  (Messrs.  Furst  &  Bradley),  he  said  :  "  It  is  impossible  to  com 
pare  the  price  of  plows  ^1857-58-59-60  with  the  price  during  the  past  four 
years.  There  is  no  more  resemblance  between  a  plow  of  those  years  and  now 
than  there  is  between  daylight  and  darkness.  A  plow,  such  as  we  sell  now, 
would  then  have  cost  100  per  cent,  more  to  manufacture  than  it  costs  now,  with 


110  FARMERS'  SUPPLIES  CHEAPENED  BY  PROTECTION. 

such  facilities  as  we  then  had.  As  a  general  rule,  the  prices  of  agricultural  imple 
ments  are  nearly  the  same  as  before  the  war,  but  the  goods  now  sold  are  worth 
loo  per  cent.  more.  They  are  of  better  quality,  more  convenient,  will  last  longer, 
are  better  adapted  to  the  wants  of  the  farm,  and  are  in  every  respect  cheaper  than 
the  goods  sold  before  the  war ;  but  a  mere  comparison  of  our  price  catalogues 
for  those  years  with  those  of  the  past  four  years  would  be  unfair,  for  they  indi 
cate  no  change  in  quality.  We  have  been  buying  stock  at  a  continual  decline 
in  price  for  several  years  past,  but  the  improvements  which  have  been  made 
each  year  more  than  offset  this  decline.  We  are  continually  putting  more  work 
and  better  work  upon  our  implements." 

On  going  out  we  met  one  of  the  partners  of  the  concern.  He  confirmed  the 
above  statement  of  facts,  and  added:  "I  make  the  knock-down  argument  that 
we  will  take  such  farm  produce  as  we  consume  at  the  prices  which  prevailed 
before  the  war,  and  sell  goods  at  ante-war  prices.  Any  farmer  who  wants  im 
plements  for  his  own  use  can  come  here  any  day  and  get  them  on  these  terms." 
When  the  improved  quality  of  the  implements  is  considered,  this  offer,  by  a  re 
sponsible  party,  is  effectually  conclusive  as  to  the  relative  value  of  farm  produce 
and  agricultural  implements. 

The  following  list  of  prices  has  been  compiled,  for  1875,  fr°m 
the  prices  current  of  the  day,  and  for  1857  from  the  books  of  old 
mercantile  firms,  the  quotations  in  each  case  being  at  retail  in  the 
West: 

1857.        1875. 

Calicoes,  prints,  per  yard 12^  .08 

Delaines,  per  yard .25  "  .15 

Alpacas,  common,  per  yard 75  .35 

Alpacas,  finer  quality,  per  yard $1.00  .40 

Alpacas,  finest  quality,  per  yard 1.25  .45 

Woolen  cloth  (shoddy  in  1857).  g°od  now,  per  yard i.oo  .60 

Woolen  cloth,  better  quality  (shoddy  in  1857),  good  now,  per  yard, 1.25  .75 

Woolen  cloth,  best  quality,  per  yard 1.50  $1.20 

Shawls,  each 12.00  8.00 

Cotton  print  cloth,  per  yard 08  .04}^ 

Raw  Cotton,  per  pound 13  .15 

Spool  silk,  loo  yards,  per  dozen : 1.25  1.25 

Skein  silk,  per  ounce 7.50  7.00 

Knit  undershirts,  each 1.25  .50 

Knit  drawers,  each 1.25  -50 

Here,  as  nearly  as  practicable,  the  comparison  is  between  the 
same  classes  and  grades  of  goods*  showing  clearly  that  prices  are 
less  under  Protection  than  they  were  under  partial  Free  Trade. 
Nearly  all  kinds  of  flannels  will  make  a  similar  showing.  Furni 
ture  is  cheaper  in  1875  tnan  it  was  in  1857  for  like  goods,  or  a 
much  better  article  can  be  had  for  the  same  money.  Let  farmers 
appeal  to  their  own  memory  for  confirmation  of  what  we  say. 

We  give  another  table,  comprising  a  list  of  all  the  woolen  fab 
rics  dealt  in  by  a  great  commission  house — a  list  which  will  show 
that,  even  with  labor  paid  higher  wages,  with  taxes  much  higher, 


FARMERS'  SUPPLIES  CHEAPENED  BY  PROTECTION. 


Ill 


and  with  wool  protected,  woolens  were  cheaper  in  1870  than  they 
were  in  1860,  making  allowance  for  the  difference  between  paper 
and  gold.  This  table  was  furnished  at  the  request  of  the  New 
York  Tribune,  some  years  ago,  by  S.  W.  Fay,  of  Perry,  Wendell, 
Fay  &  Co.,  commission  merchants  in  New  York,  Boston  and  Phil 
adelphia.  Since  then  there  has  been  a  progressive  decline  in  the 
prices  of  these  goods : 


STANDARD   WOOLENS. 

Prices     in 
gold, 
1860. 

Prices   in  cur 
rency, 

1870. 

Ravine  mixed,  all-wool  doeskins,  12  to  13  ounces  

.80  to  .85 
•  5010.55 
.60  to  .65 

.80  to  .85 
•So  to  .55 
.60  to  .65 
.25  to  .62% 
$5.00 
6.75 
.30 
•45 
.32^ 

3* 

ill54 

7-50 
.92^ 
.52^  to  .60 
.57  to  .62 
.75  to  .80 

.80 
1-25 

i.iS 

7.00 

i.  iS 

1.  10 
1.20 

$3-25 

4.75 

.26 
•34 
.26 
.27 
.14 

.21    tO   .22 
.62^ 

8.00 
.87^ 
.50  to  .55 
.55  to  .60 
.80  to  .85 
•75 

1.  10 

1.05 
7.00 
1.05 
1.05 
i.«S 

11-4  Holland  blankets   4^  Ibs     

"Talbot"  R.  scarlet  flannel,  %  (standard)  
"F.  &  C.''  twiil  scarlet  flannel,  %  (standard)  

Washington  Kentucky  jeans  (standard)    

Evans  double  and  twist,  8  ounces,  all  wool  

Middlesex  shawls 

Washington  sackings  

Glenham  repellants  

These  figures  falsify  the  assertion  made  by  the  Chicago  Tribune, 
that;  on  account  of  our  Protective  policy,  "we  pay  an  average  tax 
of  46  per  cent,  on  everything  we  eat,  drink,  wear,  or  otherwise 
consume."  It  is  thus  evident  that  the  great  mass  of  the  American 
people,  particularly  Western  farmers,  who,  despite  the  depression 
of  general  industry  caused  by  the  panic  of  1873,  obtain  higher 
prices  than  in  1860  for  their  produce,  have,  as  consumers,  no  rea 
son  to  complain  of  the  existing  prices  for  woolen  goods. 

The  following  extracts  from  a  letter  written  from  Iron  Moun 
tain,  Mo.,  to  the  editor  of  the  St.  Louis  Tribune,  July  6,  1870,  by 
an  old  man  nearly  70,  contain  some  facts  well  worth  recollecting, 
and  which  require  no  comment. 

I  remember  that  fifty  years  ago  farmers  could  get  only  25  cents  per  pound  for 
their  wool,  but  had  to  pay  $8  or  $10  per  yard  for  their  broadcloths.  That  was 
because  we  had  but  few  woolen  factories  in  this  country.  What  is  the  fact  now  ? 


112  FARMERS'  SUPPLIES  CHEAPENED  BY  PROTECTION. 


We  have  hundreds  of  factories,  and  the  consequence  is  that  farmers  are  getting 
50  cents  a  pound  for  their  wool,  and  paying  only  $2  to  $5  for  their  broadcloths. 
And  yet  these  unscrupulous,  false  sheets  tell  them  that  they  are  obliged  to  sell 
their  products  for- half  of  their  value,  and  pay  twice  as  much  as  they  ought  for 
their  manufactured  goods,  when  the  very  reverse  of  this  is  true,  and  they  are 
actually  getting  twice  as  much  for  their  products  and  paying  only  half  as  much 
for  manufactured  articles  as  they  did  fifty  years  ago,  when  we  were  dependent  on 
England. 

I  remember  that  fifty  years  ago,  before  we  had  a  cotton  mill  in  this  country, 
common  calicoes  sold  for  twenty-five  to  forty  cents  per  yard,  and  a  young  woman 
at  domestic  service  would  get  but  seventy -five  cents  per  week  for  her  wages,  and 
it  would  take  a  month's  earnings  to  pay  for  a  common  calico  dress.  But  what 
is  the  fact  now,  since  we  have  got  cotton  mills  of  our  own  ?  Why,  the  price  of 
calico  is  down  to  ten  to  fifteen  cents  a  yard,  and  any  young  woman  with  a  month's 
earnings  can  buy  half  a  dozen  calico  dresses.  In  this  connection  let  me  state 
another  fact  for  the  attentive  consideration  of  our  farmers.  If  it  had  not  been 
for  the  American  Protective  tariff  we  should  not  have  had  a  cotton  mill,  nor  a 
woolen  factory,  in  this  country  to  this  day.  We  are  indebted  to  that  system  for 
the  innumerable  manufacturing  establishments  that  have  sprung  up  in  the  Eastern 
States  and  made  them  so  Avealthy,  and  which  are  now  springing  up  as  if  by  magic 
throughout  the  West.  But  for  that  system  we  should  have  been  the  slaves  of 
England  still,  compelled  to  pay  her  former  higher  prices  for  all  manufactured 
goods,  and  to  receive  the  former  low  prices,  or  whatever  she  chose  to  pay,  for 
our  raw  products.  Our  fathers  weaned  of  the  galling  vassalage,  and  threw  off 
the  yoke  ;  and  let  there  be  none  so  mean  and  servile  as  to  seek  to  subject  their 
necks  to  that  galling  yoke  again. 

I  remember  when  farmers  used  to  get  40  cents  per  bushel  for  wheat,  and  12% 
cents  per  bushel  for  corn  and  potatoes,  and  6  cents  per  dozen  for  eggs,  and  for 
fat,  well-dressed  chickens  and  other  things  in  proportion.  But  now,  just  think 
of  the  altered  state  of  things,  down  here  in  Southeast  Missouri,  all  along  the 
line  of  Mr.  Allen's  Iron  Mountain  road,  where  the  iron  furnaces' and  foundries 
have  sprung  up.  Our  farmers  are  unable  to  supply  the  market  with  their  pro 
ducts,  and  are  getting  $i  a  bushel  for  all  the  com  they  can  raise,  $1.10  for  pota 
toes,  30  to  40  cents  for  butter,  and  everything  else  in  proportion.  Should  not 
these  villainous  sheets  be  ashamed  to  utter  such  falsehoods?  Do  they  think 
they  mislead  our  farmers?  They  might  as  well  attempt  to  change  the  course  of 
water,  or  dam  up  the  Mississippi  and  make  it  run  up  stream. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
BERKELEY 


Return  to  desk  from  which  borrowed. 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


LIBRARY  USE  NOV 


'85 


LD  21-100m-ll,'49(B7146sl6)476 


